


The Kids Aren't Alright

by WereDonkey



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: (disclaimer: haven't watched past season 4 so none of that buffonary), Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Canon-Typical Violence, Everything beforehand happened the same as the show except no one is dead, M/M, Stiles is angsty and self-sacrificing, because i live in denial and no one will take that away from me, except apparently me because people die in this, switching POV
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-06
Packaged: 2018-03-09 14:08:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3252653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WereDonkey/pseuds/WereDonkey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It only takes a few weeks for the world to fall to the virus. Zombies are everywhere, munching people's faces and generally bringing about the end of civilisation.<br/>Stiles could probably have dealt with the whole apocalypse thing if everything else hadn't gone to shit as well. Now he's just barely keeping from tearing apart at the seams, all while trying to keep Scott's head above water and the rest of their torn, little pack in one piece.<br/>But it will be alright soon, they won't be gone forever.</p><p>Alternate Title provided by Cat: Everyone Is Dying And Here Is Stiles Stilinski Trying To Keep His Best Friend Happy</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This idea sprung up from too much marathoning zombie tv shows and reading teen wolf fanfic  
> unlike almost everything else I've written ever, I actually have quite a detailed plan setting this story out so I do at least know whats going to happen, which is always good for a multi-chaptered thing
> 
> anyhow the title is a song off of Fall Out Boy's new album AB/AP which I have been listening to on repeat basically since it came out
> 
> Also super thanks to Cat ([DoNotPullTheBeigeLever](http://archiveofourown.org/users/DoNotPullTheBeigeLever/)) for listening to my brainstorming (read: whining) for this thing

Stiles will be the first to admit that their lives are far from normal. Like, they are not even on the same planet as normal. Most days they find themselves dealing with something that seems more suited to a B-grade horror film than real life.

But still. This is just pushing it too far. Zombies are a whole new level, even for them. Zombies aren’t even in the same _universe_ as normal. Stiles had briefly entertained the idea that maybe they’d all just fallen into an alternate universe and they can just jump back and it’ll be fine again, back to ~~gether~~ dealing with selkies and faeries and shit instead the end of civilisation itself. And isn’t it sad that those are things he _misses_.

Of course he'd abandoned that idea quickly. Shit is never easy for them and something helpfully straight forward like that would never happen. The universe couldn’t just allow him to be fucking _happy_ , could it? So they’re left to just try deal with what they’ve got, with the pieces left over after everything fucking shattered. And there really isn’t all that much left, not even close to enough.

From what little they _do_ know, the whole world fell to the disease in weeks. Most certainly not how he’d hoped the summer before senior year would go. (He’d had so many plans, so much _hope_. Shit lot of good it did them all though.) At first it was just reports of a weird sickness popping up all around the world. (Why had he ignored it? Why’d he let himself be ~~happy~~ distracted? He would have been all over this before – research, theories, _planning_. He _should have_ been all over this.) There wasn’t a continent that was skipped. It spread so quickly and no one was really equipped to deal with it. Like seriously, how do you do deal with people dying from a simple fever only to come back and start munching on people’s faces?

People started referring to them as ‘the infected’. Like maybe it could be cured, like this might end sometime soon. Like if they just kept pretending, they wouldn’t have to admit that they were in the middle of a goddamn zombie apocalypse. Stiles thought it was ridiculous to dance around it. They were fucking _zombies_ and no matter how much it fucking sucked, the world was actually going to shit and it looked like it was going to stay that way. People had died and they were going to continue dying. There was nothing anyone could do to change it no matter how much you ~~loved them~~ prayed to a god you didn’t even fucking believe in. So you deal with it, you move on and you keep ~~hoping that _maybe_~~ surviving. God knows that’s what Stiles is trying to do.

The news reports were telling people to stay in their homes, that if they had to go out they should wear face masks. That anyone that saw an ‘ _infected_ ’ should contact the newly set-up emergency hotline – which promptly broke down from the inundation of calls. None of the warnings did much good, though. The last reported death count said that maybe a third of the population had either succumbed to the disease or had been eaten to death.

Stiles is pretty sure that this is a gross underestimation. They’ve only encountered maybe a dozen other groups since they left Beacon Hills, and theirs has been the largest of all of them. (Not that their group is anywhere as big as Stiles wishes it was. Not that there aren’t gaps when they all sit down around the fire at night. Spaces filled with the memories of who could have, should have, _would have_ been there. Spaces that Stiles can _feel_ in his chest even when he closes his eyes against them. ~~They’ll be filled again, just as soon as they meet up again, they can’t be far off, and they’ll see them soon. They will~~. And don’t they make it just that much harder to just keep on trudging on down the road to nowhere?)

The last radio report before everything just went dark was a week ago (ish), less than a month after the outbreak and only a couple of days after they got out of Beacon Hills. ( _Most_ of them at least.) At least that’s what Stiles estimates, it’s not like they’ve really got a calendar to check or anything. Mostly the reports just said what the authorities were doing (failing to do) and what places were no longer safe (were being bombed by the military). One by one stations had been cutting out and the radio going quiet. They’d been coming in only sporadically for at least a week before it finally went quiet, not regularly but at least one a day, all on the same station and all by the same woman. She hadn’t said her name only that she was only an intern, that her family was gone and so was most of the station crew. She’d barricaded herself in her booth with her phone and had been getting updates from the CEDA and the government infrequently. Most of her intel came from other survivors whose phones still worked.

That last message had been a short broadcast, recorded and then played over and over until, presumably, the power at the station cut out. The woman’s voice was hoarse and her words were cut off by coughs – Stiles thinks she’d probably caught it too, hence no more messages. Her message was simple, that they’d lost all communication with anyone overseas. That the government had all but collapsed and no one was orchestrating anything anymore. That no help was coming to anyone anywhere. (Not that any had really been expected.) The last thing she said was that if there was anyone still alive, anyone that could hear her, she hoped they did better than she had.

Stiles thinks that they’re doing ok, relatively speaking. They’re all alive at least. (He ~~hopes wishes prays~~ _knows_ they’re alive. They have to be. They’ll meet up soon, or call, or leave a message on a wall. _Something_.)

The military’s last move had been to bomb the shit out of everything in an attempt to stop the disease reaching Washington D.C. and the White House. It hadn’t worked, obviously, but it had certainly killed a shitload more people and ensured that the major cities were now no-go areas – either because they were rubble or because they were completely overrun with brain-hungry undead.

The pack didn’t really have a destination as such (and god does Stiles wish they’d come to a decision before– before. Someplace to meet up if ~~when~~ they got split up.) But they do have a direction, an email from Cora who’d been back in Mexico. It had been after the outbreak but before everything got really bad and they’d decide to try get back to her. She’d already started head north, aiming for California and they were going south, in the hopes of meeting somewhere in the middle.

They had a road to walk down someone to see again (more than one someone and from more than one direction). They’ve got weapons to protect themselves from the monsters and enough supplies to see them between each gas station and house along the way. And maybe that’s enough for now. Enough to see them through to the other side, wherever and whatever that may be. (It’s not though. It won’t ever be enough, not without them, not with those empty spaces glaring at them and each bite of stolen, stale gas station junk food. Not with each step that takes them further from home and closer to nowhere, and each goddamn heartbeat that hurts like a fucking knife to the chest. ~~Not without _him_.~~ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'm terrible at consistency when writing so I can't promise that chapters will get out regularly but I promise to try. I'm on a roll with this one anyway but maybe once a month? is that reasonable?
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoyed that, the next chapter is almost done so more to come hopefully soon  
> Thanks for reading :)


	2. A Road to Somewhere Else

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been three weeks since the outbreak and about a week since the Pack left Beacon Hills. Not all of them are coping well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter yay!  
> Sorry it took a little long, I'm terrible at proof reading and I wanted it to be good :)

_Three weeks after the outbreak – 21 st of June (give or take)_

The sun’s going down, sinking below the tree line and casting everything in a reddish glare. The shadows that stretch across the empty tarmac are distorted and creepy, elongated and outlining the edges of the empty, burnt branches.

This part of the forest had seen some pretty fierce fires the last few years and the forest hadn’t really recovered yet. The brush is still struggling to grow back, the animals still only slowly returning. Not that forest fires were really on the top of their priority list right now, but... it was easier to think about than, well other things. Other things like the hunger panging in Stiles’ stomach, like the way each new gas station, cabin, town they reach has fewer and fewer salvageable supplies. Like the way the whole freaking world was _ending_.

Stiles sighs loudly to try and redirect his thoughts, distract his brain from his empty stomach. He can’t let Scott know he’s hurting. Stiles has done the math. There isn’t enough to go around and if Scott knows that then he’ll try and give up his share for Stiles’ sake.

Stiles just can’t let him do that. Especially not now, when he’s the only thing keeping their fractured little pack together, keeping them going even though they have no idea what they’re heading towards. They have nothing except the hope that wherever they end up is better than here and that everyone they’re missing will be there or at least on their way.

Stiles looks up from where he’s scuffing his worn-out sneakers against the road and glances around at their strange little procession. His pack plus assorted stragglers that they’d picked up after the shit hit the fan in Beacon Hills. At their dirty, torn clothes. At the bags and packs that weigh them all down. Packs filled with spare clothes, with cans and packets of dried and processed food – non-perishables only, with tents and medical supplies and bottles and bottles of water. At the weapons every single one of them slings over their shoulder, across their back, off their belts: an axe, the sheriff station’s shotguns and pistols, Allison with her bow, knives stuck in every belt, even the wolves have a crow bar or something. And every single one of them, splattered with blood and gore and covered in dirt and sweat, old and new, and all trudging on and on because staying here would be worse than anything they might find further down the road.

Scott leads the line up the front: The Alpha, carrying his pack forward. Scott really grew into his leadership of their group and even though he still has moments of doubt, he’s getting better at carrying the weight of being in charge. Stiles knows this whole thing is wearing him down though, can see it in the tense line of his shoulders when he gives out instructions, in the way his back bows as soon as they turn away to the tasks he’s set. Stiles also knows he’s not the only one noticing just how exhausted their Alpha is. Isaac sees it too.

Isaac walks beside Scott, shares the backpacks with him and giving him an ear to bounce ideas off of. The perfect second. Erica follows close behind, glaring at anything and everything. She’s better than she had been in the first few days, opening up a little more again, but she some days she still bares her teeth when anyone gets too close. Today is one of those days. She’s kicking ferociously at the pebbles on the side of the road with a ferocity that’s just on this side of dangerous, even for her. Stiles knows the pain she’s hiding under her prickly facade. He feels it himself, deep in the centre of his chest. It’s the same pain he sometimes sees as Scott’s eyes reflect firelight. They’ve got that same gaping emptiness and they’re all trying to hide it.

Danny, Jackson and Mason tend to clump together in the middle of the group. Danny and Jackson stick together, almost never leaving each other’s side, the end of the world only bringing their friendship closer. They’ve taken Mason under their collective wing, keeping him at their sides and trying their very best to keep him from collapsing. Mason still has a haunted look in his eye and no one, least of all Stiles, knows how to help him. He’s lost his whole family and his home, had to leave the town he’d grown up in and he’s had to kill things that, if not totally people, at least had human faces. And on top of all of that _and_ the end of the world, he had been forced to run for his life and leave his best friend behind. He walks with his arms wrapped around himself, back bowed against the world like just one more thing and he’ll break.

The adults seem to hang together in the middle too, the parents and Finstock at least. Peter tends to go off on his own most of the time, hanging back at the edges of the group. There’s too much bad blood between him and the pack for him to really be accepted but they couldn’t leave him behind.

Stiles thinks it’s probably kind of weird for them, to hang back and let their kids take charge, especially in such a dangerous situation. But they’ve been doing almost that for at least a year now, whenever a new supernatural threat decided to come to town. Now it’s just on a larger, more seemingly permanent basis. And when your kids have supernatural powers, well it’s easier just to defer to their experience with shit-storm crazy.

Melissa and his dad walk side by side. They are never far away from each other nowadays. It seems like they realised that the end of the world waits for no one and that they may as well be as happy as possible in the whatever-number-of days they’ve got left. Stiles is happy for them, really. After the shit they’ve all been through at least some of them get to be- nope not going there. It isn’t fair to compare one person’s loss to another’s.

Stiles comes next in their weird procession, dragging his baseball bat along behind him. The metal makes faint scraping sounds against the rough surface of the road but it’s not loud enough to attract anything. Behind him, bringing up the rear, are Allison and Lydia.

Stiles knows that their group is large, that they’re so lucky to have been able to stick together, to survive for so long, but he – and he’s sure everyone would agree – wishes with all his heart, with the tightness in his chest that never seems to go away, that they had just managed to have a few more members. (They would again soon, they would catch up. ~~They _had_ too.~~ )

There’s a shout from behind, and he spins round to face the two girls, pulling his bat up to a two handed grip. Everyone around him has jolted to a stop as well and turned with weapons raised to see that two zombies have made their way out of the woods and onto the road behind them. They’re too late though, the situation’s already been handled.

Allison is only just pulling her dagger out of the zombie’s face and grimacing as she wipes gloop off on her pants. It’s not as if they can get much dirtier, Stiles supposes. Lydia’s dealt with the other one, and gives it a kick to pull her axe free of the crack she’s split in its skull. She waves the others off and she swings the axe back up to rest on her shoulder. She doesn’t even look fazed as she and Allison start walking again, picking their conversation back up as if nothing even happened. Stiles catches her eye and sends her a wide, proud grin and she returns it with only a slightly exasperated eye roll. She’s come a long way from where they were when things first got crazy back in sophomore year.

This is what most days are like now. They’d thought that trying to prevent pixies from taking up residence in the woods every other week was a shitty situation but it had nothing on now. They spent all day walking, taking out any zombie they encountered but mostly trying to avoid them. Then, when it started getting dark, they’d try to find some kind of building to hole up in for the night. Even with the wolves’ night vision it wasn’t safe to keep going in the dark; the zombies seem to get more active when the sun goes down. Some nights, when they couldn’t find shelter or were too far from any kind of town, they had to camp out. Stiles doesn’t get much sleep without the relative safety of walls despite knowing there’s always a look out.

The sun is setting and the night is getting loud with the sounds of summer bugs. If they don’t come across something soon it’s going to be yet another night in the open, another night shivering and twitchy despite the warmth of the summer air. Stiles really isn’t looking forward to that.

Stiles can hear Isaac talking to Scott about it now. They’re just far enough ahead that he can’t make out exactly what they’re saying but they’ve had the same argument so many times Stiles is confident he can fill in the blanks. Scott will argue that they should try press forward to find more secure shelter but Isaac will insist that they use the light while they’ve got it to set up camp. Stiles tips his head back and watches the sky get redder and darker as they bicker. The first star is just starting to show when Scott throws up his hands and say ‘fine, okay, we’ll stop’ just slightly too loud.

Everyone freezes, ears straining to pick up any noise over the buzzing of cicadas, the wolves trying to scent the air. When it’s clear his shout hasn’t alerted a hoard of undead they all un-tense and gather around. Scott looks sheepish.

“Sorry, guys,” he says with a grimace, rubbing the back of his neck. “Tired I guess.” Isaac just nudges him with an elbow to show him it’s okay. “I guess we’re stopping here tonight, then. Isaac and Jackson can you guys go look for some fire wood? Mom can you check out Danny’s foot again? Everyone else, organise the sleep stuff and try find a good spot just off the road, you know the routine by now. Erica, help me hunt for something fresh to eat?”

Everyone nods and sets off to their tasks, Finstock still grumbling loudly about how he doesn’t understand why _Scott_ of all people is in charge. Stiles just gives him a smirk as he passes. They still haven’t bothered to explain the whole werewolves thing to him. He’d had a hard enough dealing with the zombies issue and Stiles didn’t think it would benefit his sanity.

They hadn’t been able to bring all the tents along when they’d abandoned the cars at the abandoned (and completely inconvenient) military road block but they had managed to pack one, the weight shared between a couple of backpacks. Stiles, who carries the actual canvas of the tent in his bag, is usually on set up duty with Mason and Danny who have the pegs and poles respectively. But Danny had cut his foot pretty bad climbing out a window a few towns before and was on Nurse McCall insisted rest every chance that he got.

Mason grimaces as he shucks off both his and Danny’s bags and rolls his shoulders. Stiles pats his head as to pass him and starts kicking loose stones and twigs to make a flat place to set the tent. He likes Mason. Likes how he stuck by Liam through all the weird crap they went through when Liam got bit and how he accepted it with barely a shrug when they finally brought him in on the big werewolf secret. He’d even been dealing well with the running for their lives bit that came with being in the pack for like two months when zombies decided to become a thing and he’d taken that in stride too. He’s adaptable and surprisingly good at zombie-fighting and he’s really only grown through all this shit. Stiles fucking hates that he had to lose his best friend in the process and that Liam wasn’t here to see how awesome he’d gotten.

That had been a really hard night for all of them. The Plan going so wrong, being split from the others had made it hard for a lot of them to keep going. Liam’s death had hit Scott particularly hard. But that night had been especially horrible for Mason. Watching your best friend die like that, Stiles shudders at the thought. He doesn’t think he’d survive that and he is infinitely impressed with how strong Mason has proved himself to be.

The tent is set and filled with as many sleeping bags as they can fit by the time Erica and Scott return with eight birds and a pair of rabbits. It’s pretty thin pickings, certainly enough to go around, but it’s all they’re going to find. The zombies scared off what few animals were still around.

Finstock stares as Scott passes them over to Allison but he seems to have given up questioning everything now, which is probably best for everyone.

Allison sets to work skinning them as Isaac and Jackson dump their gathered wood and go off to get more while Chris Argent gets started on setting the fire. Melissa and Stiles’ dad have started piling the bags at the door of the tent, sorting through them to get everything they need out and Lydia is checking the edges of their little clearing with her axe slung over her shoulder for signs of zombies, setting her self-invented noise traps, just in case.

While the campsite bustled with action, Stiles watched Scott sink down to the ground beside him. He tries to start a conversation but Ken’s responses are stilted at best. Scott grasps his shoulder, tells him that the others are probably just a few miles behind, catching up a little more every day; sharing his surety that Kira would find them further down the road. Ken just smiles at him, nodded his head until Scott stands up again. Stiles catches Scott’s eye across the fire as he turns back to helping set up camp and he holds it for a moment with a soft, small smile. They both know he hadn’t believed a word Scott said.

Scott turns away and Stiles sets about pulling their spit and the one pot they’d bothered to bring along out of his pack. He has to untangle them from his extra coat and shirts because who has time to fold their clothes when it’s the end of the world.

“You hungry yet, Danny-boy?” Stiles asks, poking Danny in the arm just to be annoying. It’s easier to be a little shit and act like nothing’s wrong, that way no one is wasting time worrying about him and it distracts people from the shittiness of their whole situation. For a few moments the thing that is wrong with their day is Stiles and not the apocalypse or their missing family and friends.

Danny sends him a glare but there is more fondness than annoyance in it these days. “Don’t call me that,” he says and flicks Stiles ear. “But in answer to your question, I’m famished. You?”

“I could eat an entire orca. I swear to you, if you produce an orca right now I will eat the entire thing right in front of you. Are you hiding an orca in that pocket there, man? Are you holding out on me?” He starts grabbing and poking at Danny’s pockets and smiles when that gets a soft laugh from Danny as he bats Stiles hands away easily.

Allison calls out for the spit and pot so Stiles leaves Danny and walks them over to her. He helps her out for a while, cutting the meat off the birds and throwing the bits in the pot with some water. Boiled bird is not the most gourmet of meals but it sure beats cold beans from a can. He says as much to Allison and she nods her head in agreement.

“And it’s miles ahead of that mouldy bread we found in that store,” she says with a grin and a raised eyebrow. “I still can’t believe you just didn’t see the blue crap on the outside before you fed it to all of us. You’re lucky we weren’t all hallucinating or something.”

Stiles gives her a sheepish look. “I wasn’t really on the ball that day, you know, what with... yeah.” He grimaces and wishes he hadn’t brought it up at all. It’s been just over a week since they’d left Beacon Hills and been split from the others and it’s all still so raw. Just because he can never think of anything else didn’t mean he wanted anyone else to feel that pain. He hadn’t meant to make her remember too.

Her smile slips and she looks like she’s about to apologise for mentioning his mistake. The sad look on her face is his fault though, so Stiles just shrugs, cutting her off before she can start. He knows she didn’t mean anything by it. It doesn’t get rid of the guilty look on her face though.

He pats her shoulder and says ‘it’s fine’ before getting up, setting the pot over the fire and going off to find Scott.

Everyone was struggling with losing the others but Scott had barely even given himself time to think about it, especially after Liam. They don’t talk about it, skirt around their names when they come up in conversation. He knows Scott blames himself but he shouldn’t. If anyone is at fault, it’s Stiles. It was _his_ plan that went so wrong and Scott hadn’t even wanted to leave town.

***

_Two weeks after the outbreak – 10 th of June_

“Look I’m just saying we can’t stay here!”

Stiles sighs in exasperation and lets his head drop forward hitting the McCalls’ kitchen table with a thump. They’d been having this exact same argument everyday for the past week, only getting louder as more people joined them in the McCall house.

“Well why not?” Scott cries, throwing his hands up at Liam. They’re following the script Stiles has in his head line by line. He has seriously heard this too many times and none of them have conceded yet.

“Look around you! The world’s going to shit and Beacon Hills is not any different. We need to get out now before we’re the only fresh meat in town!” Malia’s only been here a day but she’d picked a side almost immediately and had joined their lively debates loudly.

“Look around _you_!” Scott yells back. “We’re doing fine here, we’re safe. If we leave we’re gonna be on the road, in the open just waiting for something to attack us!”

Stiles hears Derek’s sigh from across the table and looks up to see him collapse into the chair opposite him. He looks tired and his clothes are dirty, he hasn’t even had a chance to clean up since he got back with Peter. Stiles shoots him a look, asking silently if he’s okay. Derek shoots him a tired smile in response then turns back to Scott. “She’s right you know,” he says. “We might be safe now but the supplies we’ve got are starting to run low and it’s only going to get more and more dangerous to go out and find them. We’d be better off leaving now and trying to find somewhere safer.”

Scott spins around to glare at Derek. “I thought you were on my side!” he cries, outraged. “You were on my side last week!”

Derek shrugs and doesn’t raise his voice to match the others but it carries anyway. “That was before I saw just how bad it’s getting. You haven’t seen it, Scott, but I’ve spent the last week out there trying to find Malia and Peter and it’s like it’s a completely different place to a week ago. Staying isn’t going to help anyone. Our best bet, like I said, is to try find somewhere else, less populated and with more readily accessible supplies. Beacon Hills just isn’t safe anymore.”

Scott sighs and Stiles looks up at him in surprise when he doesn’t respond past that. He’s frowning, he looks like he’s convinced but really unhappy about it. It’s a face Stiles often puts there himself and it makes him grin a little at the familiarity.

“Stiles?” he says. Stiles raises his eyebrows at him in question. “What do you think?”

“I’m with you whatever you think’s best, Scotty,” he says with a shrug but Scott frowns at him.

“But if you had to make the decision. What would you choose? Stay holed up here or figure it out on the road?”

Stiles only thinks about it for a second before he says “Leave. I think we should go and find somewhere else. Beacon Hills has nothing left for us except zombies and memories. We should move on.”

Scott nods at him. “Alright,” he says. “We’ll need a plan. Did you say that the highway out of town was blocked, Derek?”

Derek nods. “It’s covered in them; we’d never get through safely unless we can move them.”

Stiles’ brain is buzzing, already in planning mode, coming up with ideas and discarding them just as quickly. They’d need some kind of distraction, something big that would attract the zombies away from the highway. And they’d need some cars to carry all the supplies they’ve got and to get them through any stragglers safely. And guns, they’d need more guns and food and medical supplies, especially med supplies. They wouldn’t have much time, either, if Derek and Peter’s stories of what they’d seen were true.

His train of thought is interrupted, though, when Isaac comes running into the kitchen. The others are all milling around, throwing ideas around now it’s been decided they’ll actually leave. Isaac had been up in Scott’s room having given himself the task of periodically checking social media platforms and everyone’s emails (keeping the passwords to themselves seemed kind of redundant at the end of the world) for any news of people they knew. It’s how they’d found Jackson and brought him back to the house, actually. He and his parents had just returned from wherever they had been on holiday when everything starting getting really bad. His parents had been caught in the chaos and lost but Isaac had seen a Facebook post saying he’d gotten back and sent Boyd and Liam out to find him.

“I found her!” Isaac gasps, out of breath not from the exertion of running back down stairs but from the excitement evident in his voice.

Everyone looks up at him. “Who?” Malia asks impatiently.

“Cora!” Isaac says, grinning. “She emailed everyone a message. She’s halfway here already. Said she’d left Mexico when the sickness first hit the news and has been hitchhiking north ever since. She only just got internet access now and says she’s almost halfway but can’t get anyone else to pick her up. Everyone’s too scared of the virus, I think. But she’s walking here!”

Derek stands up. “By herself?” he asks, looking concerned.

Isaac shrugs. “She didn’t say,” he say, looking a little apologetic. “But whatever she’s doing, she can handle herself, you know that. She’s making her way up to us though! She’s _safe_.”

Derek smiles at Isaac. “Yeah,” he sighs, and some of the tension in his shoulders leaks out in relief. “She’s safe.”

“Well that settles it then,” Scott says. “We have to leave so we can meet her midway. It won’t be safe for her to get through town on her own and we probably should leave anyway. May as well save her some walking and some time and meet her on the road.”

Derek sighs with a soft smile and Stiles smiles back at him. Now they just need a plan of how to get out of here.

***

_21 st of June_

The sun is fully set when they all finally sit down to eat. The night is lit only but the light of their sparking camp fire and the half moon above them. Everyone is gathered around in a circle, huddled together and sitting as close to the fire as the heat allows, trying to fit everyone into the ring of light of the fire.

Everyone is chatting and eating, scooping the make-shift stew out of whatever assorted dish they picked up today from their assorted pile. Stiles usually settles for one of the mugs, letting the others take the bowls and the plates first.

They keep relatively quiet but Stiles likes the quiet buzz of five different conversations happening at once around the camp site.

Stiles isn’t quite sure where Peter is but he came through to gather up a plate not long ago. He doesn’t often sit with them, still too suspicious and tetchy around them all. Stiles doesn’t mind at all. He still doesn’t trust him and the more the former alpha and kind-of-undead creepy uncle keeps his distance the happier Stiles will be.

There hadn’t been enough bird and rabbit for the stew to feed all of them so Allison had added a can of beans. It was far from the best meal – the beans were bland, the bird tough and the rabbit gristly – but it filled their stomachs for another night. Stiles had given himself a smaller portion again, to make sure there was plenty to go around. He’s sitting next to Scott with Isaac on Scott’s other side. The two werewolves are bickering over the maps laid out before them. They’re trying to decide whether it was worth going off the main road to check out the next town coming up for more supplies. Scott is distracted enough not to have noticed when Stiles slipped a few extra spoonfuls out of his own mug and onto the alpha’s plate.

As he scoops out one last bite onto Scott’s plate, Isaac catches his eye. Stiles freezes for a second, imploring Isaac with his eyes widened to not draw Scott’s attention to it. Isaac looks at him for only a second before he nods his head and Stiles dumps the last of his stew onto Scott’s plate. Isaac turns back to the map and Stiles sits back again.

Stiles never used to get on with Scott’s second. His jealousy for Scott’s attention had prevented Isaac ever trusting him and him ever letting Isaac in. But they’ve reached an understanding now, in the midst of the apocalypse. Stiles trusts him to take as much of the weight as Scott will let him, too protect and support him in the ways Stiles just can’t. And Isaac trusts him to be there to make sure Scott looks after himself, make sure he isn’t giving everything away, that he does put himself first when he needs to. Together, they plan on getting Scott through this apocalypse and out the other side as intact and unchanged as possible.

Scott’s laughing now, at something Isaac said but Stiles missed. Scott stands up then, still chuckling.

“Everyone done yet?” he asks, looking around, receiving nods and calls of confirmation. Stiles watches him walk around the circle gathering plates and bowls and mugs from everyone into a large pile in his arms. “There was a stream not far off,” he says. “I’ll go rinse all these out there so we don’t have to waste any of our clean water.”

Stiles shares a look with Isaac. Typical Scott. Despite being in charge, or more likely because of it, he always gives himself the least popular tasks. No one wants to walk so far from the light of the fire these days.

Allison stands up from beside Lydia and slings her bow over her shoulder. “You can’t go on your own,” she says.

“I’m not going to _die_ , I’m just washing some dishes,” Scott says as he glances around looking for someone to support his claim. No one even pays that much attention to him, continuing their own assorted conversations. When his eyes land on him, Stiles just raises his eyebrow at his best friend, he doesn’t plan on getting involved.

Scott rolls his eyes at them but shrugs. “Alright, Ally,” he says. “You can carry the pots.” Allison holds out her hands and takes them from him and they set off further into the forest together. Lydia watches them go with her brow wrinkled in a small frown.

Stiles scoots over next to her and pokes her shoulder. “They’ll be fine, you know they will. Nothing can even got close enough to be a problem with Scott’s super-wolf hearing and Ally’s bow.”

Lydia offers him a weak smile, digging in the dirt with a twig. “I know,” she says. “I just hate when she’s out of sight, you know? I can’t stand not knowing where she is, if she’s ok.”

Stiles bumps his shoulder into hers. He knows. He knows so very well. The conversations around the fire start to peter out and the pack begins turning in and preparing to turn in for the night. There wasn’t enough room for everyone in the tent, not comfortably especially in the summer heat, so whoever turned in first got to sleep under the canvas and everyone who wouldn’t fit slept in sleeping bags around the camp fire. It’s generally warm enough, although Stiles doesn’t know what they were going to do when winter hit.

Stiles and Lydia don’t move to get ready for sleep. They sit with their sides where they were, pressed to one another, waiting for Scott and Allison to return. Lydia watching the blackness of the forest and Stiles staring into the flickering fire. They don’t speak but find comfort in each other’s presence.

It takes almost half an hour for Scott and Allison to return. Lydia sits tense beside him the entire time. When they do finally step back into the clearing, they still don’t speak. Lydia does smile softly at Stiles as she stands and follows Allison over to the fire. Once Scott and Allison lay the dripping dishes out on a sheet in front of the fire to dry, Lydia grabs Allison’s hand and leads her over to their two sleeping bags across the fire from where Stiles sits. Scott watches them with a soft look in his eyes, the corner of his mouth lifted up.

Scott turns to Stiles then. “You turning in yet?” he asks. “We’ve got quite a way to walk tomorrow; Isaac thinks we can make it to the next town along by night fall if we head out at dawn.”

Stiles groans softly. “Dawn?” he complains. “Seriously? Can’t we sleep in just once?”

Scott pats his shoulder with a soft chuckle. “Yeah, yeah, we have a long way to go if we want to catch up with Cora,” he says. “Can’t stop yet.”

Stiles keeps his mouth shut and just nods. Scott turns away to go check on those in the tent before finding his own sleeping bag. He knows that they can’t stop, that for the good of the whole group they have to keep moving.

But he can’t help but think that if they just stayed put for one day the others might have more of a chance to catch up. They couldn’t be far behind; they had to have gotten out.

He can’t think about what he’d do if they hadn’t.

Stiles rubs at his chest with his knuckles, tries to alleviate the tightness that sits there. During the day he’s usually fine, it’s just when everyone turns in and he’s left to his own thoughts with nothing to distract him that the emptiness really looms at him. And he can’t let himself fall into that abyss, can’t lose hope because he knows that if he does then that’s it, there’s no way he could go on and he could never do that to Scott, to his dad, to their pack. They need him.

Stiles slips his shoes off and zips himself into his sleeping bag. He pillows his head on a rolled up hoodie from his backpack and lies out on the ground, staring up at the sky. He always has trouble sleeping out in the open but he tries to will himself asleep anyhow.

It’s quiet, the cicadas have shut up and the air is so still there isn’t even any rustling in the trees. The only sounds he hears come from the pack, alone in the forest. He can hear is Jackson, who’s on watch, occasionally shifting his position sitting against a tree outside the circle of the firelight. He can hear the soft, slow breathing of the pack, sleeping around him. He can hear his own breath loud in his ears. He can hear muffled gasps and choked breaths from whoever he lay next to, as if they’re trying to hold in sobs.

It’s Erica. And it’s not the first time either, that he’s heard her cry quietly and alone while everyone else sleeps. He never knows what to say. He wishes there was something he _could_ say, to convince her to hold on to hope a little while longer, that there is no reason to give up on them just yet. He never says anything though, never even sits up or looks at her. And he doesn’t today.

He does reach out his hand, though. He reaches out and in the dark, without looking over at her, he finds her hand and holds on. Her sobs stop for a moment before she squeezes his hand back and holds his cool palm against her face. Her cheek is damp and her grip is so tight Stiles can feel the bones of his hand rolling under the skin. He doesn’t move though, doesn’t make a sound. He just holds her hand in the dark and the silence until her breaths even out and she falls asleep. There’s nothing else he _can_ do.

He can’t cry just yet, knows that if he does he will break. So he just lies next to Erica and lets her cry against his palm, hoping that maybe in sharing in her grief it will alleviate some of his own, fill some of the gaping hole in his heart.

When his hand finally slips from hers, he pulls it back into his sleeping bag and rolls over. It takes him a while to fall asleep with pain still wild in his chest and when he finally does slip into unconsciousness, he finds no solace there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed that, more to come soon  
> Hopefully it won't be quite ass long a wait, Chapter Two is almost finished (although according to ao3 it's Chapter Three)
> 
> Also also visit me on [my tumblr](http://im-a-weredonkey.tumblr.com/)


	3. Breadcrumb Trails

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Pack is still travelling South with some disagreement about how fast they should be travelling, Stiles isn't having a great time, and zombies are annoying. But maybe they just need a night off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should not have started giving summaries to the chapters I am terrible at them and I'm sorry to subjecting you to them

Darkness so thick he feels like he’s swimming in it. There is nothing here, nothing at all. No matter what way he turns his head there is only black, black so deep he can’t even tell the distance it goes on, just that it is.

But then, a flash of light in the distance. Flickering yelloworangered. Fire! It’s fire, he can feel the heat from here. Something is burning, smoke in his lungs. He can’t breathe, he can’t see. Waterwaterwater– but no, fire is good. They planned for this. Someone is making it on purpose so they can–

Escape. Run. Running, the burning in his lungs is exertion not smoke. Running.

Fire. Fire. Fireball–explosion. Not good, not good. Too much heat. Bright, searing, too much, too much. Smoke. Fire. Bright yelloworangered. Lighting the world like a sun in the dead of the night. A sunset. It’s red. Dripping and dripping, it’s on his hands. Burning? No sticky. Warm and sticky.

Blood. Blood on his hands, in his mouth. Iron in his nose, on his tongue. Spraying, his face is sticky. In his eyes, he can’t see. Bloodbloodblood.

Screaming. Is it him or someone else? There’s someone he needs to find. Someone is missing. Who’s not here? Screaming, screaming. Find him find him wait wait wait–

Coughing, screaming, choking. Smoke? No, not this time. Exhaust, fumes, diesel. Cars. Doors slamming. His name, again and again. But he’s screaming, it’s him. Wait wait wait–

Hands. Not his, someone else, pulling at him, grabbing him. Hands on his shoulders, tugging, tugging. Hands everywhere, holding him back, pulling him away.

He can’t breathe he can’t breathe. He has to get away has to get back has to–

***

_22nd of June (probably)_

Stiles eyes snap open as his arms fling out and bat at the hands gripping his shoulders. His chest heaves, deep and fast.

He’s looking up into Scott’s face. Scott’s face which is pinched tight, worry wrinkling his brow and a spark of sympathy in his warm brown eyes.

Stiles closes his eyes, tries to get his lungs back under control. He sits up and wipes roughly at his face with both hands. He’s so thankful his cheeks are dry.

Stiles presses his palms tight into his eyes and doesn’t look up as Scott’s hand squeezes his shoulder. He feels him he pull back and collapse to sit beside him.

“Almost time to go,” he says.

Stiles nods, not trusting himself to speak just yet. He pulls his head up though, sighs shakily and then opens his eyes again. He glances sidelong at Scott but he’s not looking. Scott’s focus is resolutely on the hurried packing around them, the pack bustling around in the dim, pre-dawn light.

Stiles watches as the last few sleepers are pulled from unconsciousness. The tent is already deflated, poles being unthreaded by Jackson and Isaac. Chris and Finstock are steadily growing a pile of bread, toasted by the dying remains of the fire. People move back and forth packing everything back into backpacks ready for another day of walking down an empty highway.

“It was nice to have a full night’s sleep,” he says, without turning to Scott.

He feels Scott’s eyes turn to him, but they slip away just as quickly. He sees Scott nod out of the corner of his eye.

“Yeah,” Scott says. “Glad we didn’t have any emergencies last night.”

Stiles knows Scott knows. Scott has known about his nightmares for as long as he’d been having them. He wishes he didn’t but he’s grateful that the alpha doesn’t ever bring it up. Stiles is supposed to strong, holding it together so that he can shoulder some of the weight his best friend has taken on. He can’t have him worrying about him on top of keeping everyone else alive, fed, rested and _hopeful_.

It’s not like the dreams are _new_. Well, this particular one is, but the having nightmares part itself isn’t. After the business with the Darach and the Nematon and the darkness around his heart, sleeping had kind of lost its desirability for Stiles. The Nogitsune had added some new material, spiced up his night time adventures into his subconscious with a lot more blood. But now, almost every night it was the same damn dream. Reliving that night when everything had just gone drastically wrong. Where his mistakes had lost him them people they cared so deeply about. His own damn plan had lost the pack integral parts of its heart.

Stiles looks over at Scott as he stands up. Chris and Melissa are passing around the pieces of toast now, a piece for everyone with a wafer thin layer of spread. He can see it in the set of his friend’s shoulders and the way his eyes still won’t meet Ken’s even as he smiles softly in greeting. In the way his eyes shine a little too wet sometimes, around the fire. His heart is aching and he wants to hold onto hope but he doesn’t have the luxury.

Scott had taken on the responsibility to lead them all out of this hell and they can’t stop, no matter how much it tore at him to keep moving further and further away.

And that was the heart of it. Why he just can’t let Scott see the cracks he keeps under the surface, how this one dream hits him again and again, tearing at him from the inside out. He has to hold onto hope when Scott can’t allow himself to. He has to be the anchor that keeps Scott grounded in what he has to protect and where he has to lead them. But he also has to be something like a buoy, to keep his head above water, to keep him from drowning in his own despair, multiplied by everyone else’s.

Scott grins at his mom as she passed them both a piece of toast. Scott takes a large bite, chewing as he calls out final checks for everyone to do before they leave.

Stiles just nibbles at his own, his stomach still tight in knots from the dream. He shoulders his bags as he stands up and slips his bat across his shoulders, through the straps, to keep his hands free to eat.

Everyone has gathered around the coals of the now extinguished fire, all bags packed and accounted for. They all turn to Scott and watch him expectantly as he swallows.

“Right,” Scott says, clearing his throat. “So we’re keeping on down the same road but Isaac thinks there’s a small town coming up that might be out of the way enough to still have a good amount of supplies but small enough that we won’t to worry too much about it being occupied.” Everyone looks grim but determined. ‘Occupied’ is Scott’s polite way of saying zombie infested.

“I think we can probably reach it by nightfall, if we push hard,” Isaac pitches in.

Stiles watches Melissa’s mouth pitch down in a frown. “Danny’s foot still isn’t healed,” she says, gesturing at where he sits, leg stretched out and shoe off. “There’s no way we can keep pushing at the rate we’ve been going, let alone go harder. He needs to rest and heal or it’s going to get real bad.”

Jackson steps forward from where he had been standing beside Danny, arms crossed. “We keep going how we have been,” he says, staring Isaac down. “And when we _do_ reach this town you’re gunning for we’re gonna stop for a bit and let him heal, got it?”

Isaac looks like he wants to argue the point, his eyes even flashing yellow briefly. Scott steps between his two betas before the situation get out of hand.

He pushes gently at Isaac’s chest to get him to back up. “It will only take an extra day,” he says, placating. “We’ll be fine.”

“But Cora–”

Scott stares him down and he cuts himself off. “Cora will meet us where she meets us, she won’t overshoot and we all need a few days rest. It will be fine, Isaac.”

They stare at each other for a moment, neither willing to back down. But Scott’s his alpha and even though he allows for majority rule and debate, Isaac knows when to give up the fight. He heaves a sigh but looks away first and nods in submission.

Scott pats his shoulder before turning and heading back towards the highway. Isaac follows him and the rest of the pack falls into step behind them.

The sun is only just stretching over the horizon as the step out onto the tarmac, bleeding into the grey of the lightening sky and outlining the clouds in red and pink. Despite starting together in a clump, it doesn’t take long for the group to spread out along the road, five different conversations beginning at a low murmur.

Like every day before, Stiles starts the day walking up the front with Scott. He does his best to crack a smile out of him, a _real_ smile even if it’s a little dimmer than usual. Isaac walks with them, still a little tense but he soon loosens up again, joking with Scott. They keep the conversation away from anything serious, just laughing about funny stories they remember, reminiscing about food they miss, the holiday homework they _don’t_ miss.

As the sky lightens and the reds fade to yellows and then bright, bright blue, Stiles starts to hang back a bit. He claps Scott on the shoulder once before waiting for Erica. He falls into step beside her and they walk in silence together for a while. Neither of them brings up what happened the night before, but Erica sends him a small but genuine smile and squeezes his hand once, tight. After that she moves over to join Allison and Lydia on the right hand side of the road.

Stiles sends a smile to Mason as he hangs back to join him, Jackson and Danny, and tries to join their conversation. They’re discussing theories about how the outbreak started with Chris. It’s all speculation and mostly pretty weird, especially the ideas coming from Jackson.

Argent and Danny seem set on a supernatural cause although none of them have read or encountered anything even close to explaining this. Danny’s still convinced it’s got something to do with the telluric currents and how close they are to the moon. Argent maintains that it’s probably a witches’ coven’s spell gone massively, horribly wrong.

Stiles is going through his mental catalogue of every zombie movie, television show and book he’s ever seen or read, trying to compile all their theories together. He picks out the more ridiculous ones and adds them to the debate, not from any serious desire to contribute, mostly to get a laugh out of the rest of them. Argent just sort of huffs in fond exasperation at most of what he says.

Melissa is laughing at the lot of them from where she’s walking a few steps behind them with Stiles’ dad, Ken and Finstock. “It’s a virus,” she calls up to them. “We already know that. I doubt it has much to do with any alien asteroids or anything, Stiles.” Stiles turns to face her walking backwards and screws his face up at her and pokes out his tongue. She only rolls her eyes in return.

The Sheriff looks thoughtful for a moment. “Maybe it was a biological weapon first,” he says. “You know, like a disease   some military scientists created but accidentally let loose.”

Argent gets a thoughtful look on his face at that. “It would make sense,” he says. “I mean it’s been pretty effective at decimating the population. Although, maybe a little more effective than they intended?” He says the last bit with an eyebrow raised.

They hum in agreement, going quiet for a moment. The conversation moves on after that, to lighter, more trivial things and it isn’t much longer before Scott calls for them to stop.

They sit in small clumps and clusters in the middle of the road together for lunch. The sun is bright high up above their heads, their shadows barley stretching beyond their feet. They haven’t got a lot of supplies but a few bags of chips, jerky and lukewarm bottles of water and sports drink make their way around the circles, shared out between everyone.

Stiles grins at his dad as he passes the beef jerky over to him. “Bet you’re glad about the world ending,” Stiles tells him. “No more fresh food means you get to eat whatever you want.”

The Sheriff only grins widely at him in return, taking a large bite of a piece of jerky and chewing with a satisfied smirk on his face. “Only thing I miss,” he says as he swallows, “is bacon. No bacon during the apocalypse.”

Scott groans from Stiles’ other side. “Please,” he cries dramatically holding his stomach and collapsing against Stiles. “Do not talk about bacon! Oh, bacon!” He grips Stiles face between his hands. “Baaaaacon,” he groans.

The rest of the pack is laughing at him, it’s real and bright and Stiles can’t help but join them. It’s been a good day, they hadn’t encountered a single zombie since setting out, hadn’t had to kill anything with a human face.

They’re not alright, so far from that. Looking around, Stiles can still see emptiness behind a lot of their eyes, pain and loss in the stretch of their skin around their eyes. But, for this small moment sitting on a once busy highway with not a car in sight, they can laugh and revel in how they are still here, still mostly whole. That they’re together–

 _Mostly_. ~~Not everyone, not him.~~

Stiles laughter catches in his throat and dies a quiet death. The others keep joking, lamenting the food they miss and mocking each other for their dramatics. He smiles and laughs at all the right points, no one notices that there’s nothing behind it anymore.

He’s weighed down by all they’ve lost, by ~~who~~ what they’re missing, here at the end of the world. ~~Who~~ What they can’t need to recover. Somehow.

He can’t shake the heaviness of that thought even as everyone packs up and sets off again down the road. He can’t shake it as the sun continues its journey west to sink back down below the horizon. He walks on his own for the rest of the day, doesn’t want to bring anyone else down, not when they look lighter than they have in a long time, since this whole thing started. Not when Erica is looking brighter than she has in over a week, her steps lighter, a small smile on her face as she jokes with Allison and Lydia.

When his dad raises a worried eyebrow at him, Stiles tries his best to muster up a smile. It feels weak and little shaky but it’s enough to placate his concern for now. He’d tried to get Stiles to talk about it all but he seems to have realised there’s nothing much he can do. Stiles doesn’t even want to think about it.

Stiles only shakes himself from his dark mood when he’s too distracted by the adrenaline rush of a fight to keep brooding. The sun is touching the tops of the trees when they have their first zombie encounter of the day.

About ten come lurching out of the woods in a clump, barrelling straight unto the road in the middle of their group. The one at the front grabs at Danny, who’s closest, and he tries to lurch back out of its reach, his wounded foot slowing him down just a bit too much. Jackson steps in, though, and splits its skull with a pick before it even gets a hand on Danny’s flailing jacket.

Stiles steps in close to the next one, swinging hard into the side of its head with his bat. It goes down but it’s still moving, hands scrabbling for purchase on Stiles’ pants. He swings the bat up over his head and down onto the thing’s skull once more. Its hand spasms out and latches onto his foot, pulling. Stiles barely stumbles, just hits it again and again.

Finally, it goes still with a squelchy crack and a spray of brain matter against Stiles pants. It blends nicely with the other gunk already dried there. Stiles grimaces and kicks the zombie away a little more viciously than is probably necessary.

When he looks up, trying to wipe some gunk off his shoes onto the road, the other walking dead have already been dispatched. At least five have arrows sticking out of their eye sockets and Peter is wiping his claws in the grass at the side of the road, a zombie with a very slashed and broken skull collapsed beside him. They’re getting faster at this, better at not seeing faces of the humans that these things used to be. Stiles wonders whether or not that’s actually a good thing.

Allison is pulling her arrows from the zombie’s skulls now, wiping the eye goo off in the grass while Lydia holds out her quiver for each newly cleaned one.

“All good?” Scott calls back.

“Yep,” Jackson calls back. “We got it covered, McCall. Don’t need you.” There isn’t anything behind what he says except a small laugh. He’d accepted Scott as alpha just as quickly as Scott had agreed to help him out, let him in the pack. Stiles still doesn’t get along with him but he’s willing to try, for Scott’s sake.

Once everyone is satisfied with the state of their weapons and clothes (Stiles gives up on his shoes, decides that they’ll at least match the rest of his clothes) they move on again. They laugh and chat like they didn’t just splatter brain matter all over the tarmac.

The fight has shaken the worst of the darkness from his mind for the time being. Stiles moves back up to walk with Scott and tries to join in with the conversation again. He doesn’t talk much, the weight is still there heavy in his chest, but he does bump shoulders with Scott a few times. He sends a slightly steadier smile back to his dad over his shoulder and it only widens when his dad gives him one in return.

Stiles slings his bat back through his backpack. They still have a long way to walk.

***

It’s starting to get late now and Stiles estimates that there’s probably only one, maybe two hours of light left. It’s already starting to get dim, the sky turning yellow and red. From Isaac’s grumbling beside him he knows that they’re nowhere near close enough to the town to even try and make it before it gets dark.

“I so hope there’s some kind of building soon,” Erica calls out. “I do not want to spend another night in the open. Seriously, dealing with the bugs _alone_...”

Commiserating grumbles flare up around the group. No one likes sleeping out. Scott spins around to face everyone, walking backwards as he flings he arms out.

“You’re all in luck then,” he cries. “According to the map there’s a gas station coming up just around that bend. “ He gestures vaguely ahead of them. “And it’s a big one too,” he adds grinning even wider. “With a McDonald’s and everything.”

A few quiet cheers erupt then, quiet enough not to attract too much undead attention but loud enough to be ecstatic. It’s been too long since they’d been able to spend the night in any kind of building.

Stiles catches sight of a sign off the side of the road through the dimming light. _Gas station and truck stop next exit._ He points it out to Isaac who whoops, disappointment in not making it to the town momentarily forgotten at the prospect of sleeping beneath a roof again.

When the gas stop finally comes into view another cheer goes up and once the doors have been opened (broken into with thankfully no alarm: thank you, Chris and your worrying but useful expanding skills set), everyone dumps their bags at the entrance and just breathes for a moment.

The air inside is a little stale from no circulation but it doesn’t smell like rotting flesh so Stiles feels safe in assuming there won’t be any zombies lurking around. (Or anything else that they wouldn’t really want to find.)

Chris and the Sheriff go on ahead to check the back rooms, weapons up just in case. They come back after only a few tense minutes and give the all clear, no one else around, undead or otherwise.

They spread out through the room, after that, checking shelves and back rooms, sorting through supplies and setting up for the night. The Sheriff pulls Scott to the side as everyone else gets to work.

“There’s only one back door,” he tells him quietly. “It’s secure but it’s only wood, not strong.” Scott nods at him and goes to talk to Isaac.

They’ve developed a kind of routine for when they come across gas stations along the road. Everyone helps out checking for any useful and unspoiled supplies: food, medical supplies, camping kits, water bottles. It’s rare that they get to spend the night under a roof though. Most days it’s too early in the day to stay without wasting a whole day when Scott thinks they should keep moving.

Melissa has made Danny sit down again and is cleaning and redressing his foot. She’s grumbling about infection but from the tone of her voice Stiles can tell she isn’t that worried.

Erica and Lydia have gone back outside to see what they can find around the building. Stiles heads into the back rooms to see if he can find anything interesting. There isn’t much, just a lot of paperwork and computers that won’t work.

Everyone else is spread out through the store, pillaging the shelves and raiding the McDonald’s storage cupboards. Anything useful is put together on one of the eat-in tables to be sorted and allocated later.

When Stiles comes back out to the front, there is a sizable pile of food and supplies. Scott and Isaac have broken up their talk and are now both moving furniture around to make more room.

Stiles helps Mason lay out everyone’s sleeping bags on the floor in the empty space in front of the McDonald’s counter. He collapses onto one, revelling for a moment in the chance to sit down without twigs poking him in the butt.

He looks up when Lydia calls out from the door. She steps back inside, a spring in her step with Erica following closely behind her looking almost as excited.

“This is literally the best place we have ever stopped,” Lydia announces to the room at large. Everyone turns to look at her, Allison looking on fondly at her wide grin. “Guess what we just found?” she says, seeming almost giddy. It’s weird to see her so uninhibited in her joy so whatever it is, Stiles knows it’s going to be awesome.

“What?” asks Jackson, always the one who’s unwilling to wait.

“A generator!” Erica all but yells as Lydia claps her hands in excitement. “ _And_ ,” she says, “We’re at a gas station so there’ll be plenty of fuel!”

“That’s awesome!” Scott says, looking up from hauling a table to the centre of the room, where all the others have been pushed together.

“We can use an actual kitchen to make dinner,” Mason puts in. “A proper stove cooked meal.” His face goes a little spaced out at the prospect.

Everyone is grinning at that, half of them gathering around their table of supplies and tossing around ideas of what they can eat. Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, Finstock is the most vocal. He argues for almost ten minutes with Jackson about whether microwave ramen is or is not a delicacy worthy of their feast tonight.

Scott collapses next to Stiles, grinning at him. They listen to the pack squabble about the merits of different food for a while and Stiles notes that some of the tension is leaking out of Scott’s shoulders, the worry lines on his face soften. It all feels so easy, here, with food and power and the prospect of a good night’s sleep between four walls and a roof.

The discussion ends when Ken says, quite logically, that they should just cook the whole two kilogram bag of rice because they’d never have a big enough pot to cook enough for all of them again, let alone be able to carry it with them.

“It’s not like we’re gonna find another microwave either,” Finstock points out. The others shrug in agreement and he grins in triumph. Jackson just rolls his eyes.

“Is there anything else not worth bringing with us?” Danny asks. “We should just eat everything not worth bringing along now.”

A few more microwave meals get added to the menu and Chris starts hauling the pile towards the McDonald’s kitchen. Jackson, Erica and Isaac follow after him, agreeing to help prepare it all.

The rest of them spread out again, taking chairs and sleep bags or just sitting on the floor to relax and wait for dinner to be ready. Conversations break out around the room and the occasional clatter or bang comes from the kitchen.

Scott turns to Stiles then and looks at him seriously.

“This place is great,” he says, but his grim expression tells Stiles he thinks otherwise. “We’ve got so much more food, mum’s thrilled about the med supplies we’ve found and everyone’s happy about finally getting to sleep inside. But... it isn’t very secure.”

Stiles nods, thinks he knows where this is going.

Scott shifts his gaze towards the back of the building. ”Your dad said there’s a back door and it’s not very strong.” Scott looks back at him and then gestures ahead of them. “And,” he says, “Even with all the windows, we’ll never see anything coming until it’s already here. The lights won’t let us see out.”

“So we need a look out to stay outside, out of the light,” Stiles shrugs. “We have every other night we’ve been out here, what’s the problem?”

Scott sighs. “Everyone just seems so laidback here,” he says, frowning and looking down at his hands, folded in his lap. “I just didn’t want tonight to be like every other. It’s dumb, I know, but I just wanted to give everyone a break from _worrying_ about it, you know?”

Stiles shakes his head at him. “It’s not dumb, man,” he says. “It’s probably exactly what they need, a night off from the apocalypse.” He grins at how that is his life now. Scott grins back, knowing exactly what’s going through his head to make him grin like that.

Stiles claps a hand onto Scott’s shoulder and pushes himself up to his feet. “Don’t worry, dude,” he says, looking down at him. “I can take the watch tonight, not like I’m too keen on sleeping anyhow.”

Stiles winces when Scott’s face falls. “Seriously,” he says, trying to dissuade his worrying. “I’m fine and I’d rather it was me out there than you, you need sleep.” He turns and starts heading towards Chris’s assortment on rifles, grabbing a high powered torch as well. Scott frowns and follows him.

“Are you sure?” he says. “I can get Isaac to do it.”

Stiles shakes his head. “Nah, he needs about as much sleep as you at this point. Besides,” Stiles pulls the gun’s shoulder strap over his head with a cheeky grin. “I’m a better shot than both of you.” Scott pokes his tongue out at him but doesn’t push it further. He knows he’s right.

Stiles turns towards the door. “I’ll be up on the roof. Bring me some food when they’re done making noise in the kitchen.” He grins back over his shoulder at Scott and sends him a salute. “Night gathers, and now my watch begins,” he says, mock solemnly. Scott laughs loudly at him, making Allison and Lydia sitting nearby look up.

Stiles starts quoting loudly as he heads through the door. “I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the shield that guards the realms of men.” Scott and the girls’ laughter follow him even through the closed door.

***

Stiles wraps his jacket closer around himself. It’s pretty warm but up on the roof there is a cool breeze blowing and it has a bite to it.

The night is quiet and still. Stiles sits cross-legged in the middle of the roof, gun across his knees, watching the faint outlines of the trees and the road for signs of movement. Occasionally he shifts in quarter circles to watch the other sides of the building, the wide flat roof meaning he can sit in the middle and just swivel instead of moving each time.

The lights from inside create a warm glow against the concrete below him but he’s high enough that it doesn’t affect his night vision. He keeps his eyes moving though, across the landscape spread out in front of him. There hasn’t been very much to see.

Scott had been by maybe a half hour ago with a bowl of rice and microwave curried... something. Stiles isn’t quite sure what exactly it was but it had been edible and filling and warm. The bowl now sits beside him, empty and cold next to his half empty thermos of coffee.

Occasionally a laugh travels up to him with the wind through the propped open door. He thinks they’re playing a card game, like they used to back when they were all holed up in the McCall house, before everything got this bad. He smiles at the memory of aggressive snap and downright dirty poker. They’d made the wolves where earplugs after they’d found out they’d been using their hearing to read people’s heart beats for bluffs. Malia had taken a shine to poker as soon as they’d introduced it to her. Somehow she could read them all even without listening to their hearts. Derek had told him she’d probably been using her nose. Derek had never played poker, said it wasn’t fair on the rest of them seeing as he could read them all like books.

Derek.

God, _Derek_.

Stiles breathes in shakily and blinks hard. He’d promised himself he wasn’t going to go there, wouldn’t let himself think about it all until he saw him again. Stiles grinds the heels of his hands against his eyes, trying to will away the prickling. He shakes his head then lets it flop back and stares up at the stars for a moment. The same stars as before. The one thing that wouldn’t change, no matter what shit-storm erupted. Stiles sighs, closes his eyes and gives in. Just for a moment, he lets the memory wrap around him.

He can still feel the way they’d all felt that much lighter, rejoicing in the relief at having reached the end of another school year and in the endless possibilities of the beginning of another summer stretching out ahead of them. He remembers the hope, anxiety, joy sitting tight under his ribcage as he’d followed a dark head through the mass of people, hands joined between them.

He remembers how the music had faded the further away they walked from the house where the party still raged in full swing. He remembers how the cicadas had been so loud that they’d drowned out everything else except the heavy bass beat.

The taste of cheap beer lingers on his tongue and the smell of cut grass surrounds him. He remembers the way the grass scratched at the skin of his arms and ankles when they lay back, side by side, under the clear night sky.

Stiles opens his eyes again and lays back against the concrete.

He remembers watching these same stars on a different night, in a clearing surrounded by trees, winking at him through the black of the sky. He remembers looking over and watching their light reflect off green eyes that were already watching him. He remembers grinning at that, stupidly happy and hopeful.

He can almost feel that callused palm soft against his cheek again, holds his own there as a pale substitute. He closes his eyes, feels the moisture hanging from his eyelashes collect on his nose as he remembers chapped lips pressed gentle against his, the both of them smiling too much to kiss properly. But when they had, when they _had_ –

Stiles jerks himself violently back to the present. He sits up shakes himself from the memory, opens his eyes and rubs his face hard. He pushes the memory back into the little box he’s made in his head. _Don’t go there_ , he tells himself. _Not again, not ‘til you see him again_.

His breath is still shaky when he turns back to scanning the horizon, trying to clear his mind again. It’s gotten quiet inside so they must be about ready to go to sleep. Stiles wipes his face one last time and steadies his breathing. He stretches and then resettles to wait out the rest of the night.

***

_23rd of June_

Dawn, when it comes, breaks in yellow and gray. The light brightens, revealing again the empty road stretching out ahead and behind. The night had been still and nothing moves now as Stiles watches blue bleed back into the sky and the sun creep back above the horizon.

He scales back down the side of the building, gun slung across his shoulder, bowl and the now empty thermos under his arm. He opens the doors slowly against the creak and slips back inside. It looks like everyone is still asleep; he can pick out his dad’s snore from across the room.

He picks his way carefully around sleeping forms and outstretched limbs towards the kitchen. He smiles fondly at Lydia and Allison curled together, beside them a half knocked over game on their small travel chessboard.

Sometimes carrying the board games and the packs of cards around seems like an indulgence they can’t afford. But the laughter from last night and the girls’ relaxed, sleeping faces are argument enough to keep them.

Stiles slips behind the counter and into the kitchen, heading directly for the coffee maker. He’s going to need coffee today, if they’re going to be walking all day. He’s sure everyone else will want some too so he leaves the machine on and makes sure there’s enough water in it for everyone. It’s _good_ coffee too, from a machine, not instant and made over a fire.

Cupping the mug in both hands, Stiles takes a moment just to breathe in the steam, revelling in the scent of fresh brewed coffee. He takes his first sip and lets the taste sit in his mouth a moment. It wakes up his brain but it also spreads a sense of calm through his whole body, the tightness in his shoulders loosen, his face smooths out in bliss. Small comforts go a long way.

Peter is leaning against the bench across from him when he opens his eyes. Stiles is proud of the fact he doesn’t startle. He does, however, choke a little bit on his sip of coffee but he would like to think he covers it nicely with a cough and that Peter will never know.

“You’re up early,” Stiles says, his voice only a little hoarse.

“You’re up late,” Peter counters, a smirk on his face and an eyebrow raised.

Stiles rolls his eyes and turns away from him. “Touché,” he says dryly.

Peter follows him back out into the main area, still smirking. “Getting so little sleep can’t be good for you,” he says quietly.

Stiles turns to make a face at him. He’s leaning against the counter in the exact same position he’d had in the kitchen.

“I’m fine,” Stiles says, turning back to where he’s started rifling through his backpack. “Not that you actually care about my wellbeing.” Stiles points at him, his eyes narrowed. “I know you. You’re never concerned about people’s health. You’ve got something else going on. But I’m watching you and I’m warning you now: try anything – and I mean _anything_ – that undermines Scott or threatens the safety of these people and I will personally ensure you won’t be coming back from the dead twice.”

Peter’s smirk does not even fall. He grips his chest, a mock hurt expression on his face. “I’m insulted, Stiles,” he says in a voice that’s outraged but laced with amusement. “To think you think so lowly of me, that I would do such a thing. I’m perfectly happy with my place in this little pack.”

Stiles scoffs at him before turning back to the bag and finally finding what he’s looking for. He slips the sharpie into his pocket and stands up.

“Sure, Peter,” he says. He turns away from him and heads over to Scott, crouching down next to him and poking his shoulder. It takes him a few tries but Scott finally stirs, blinking back into consciousness.

“Mornin’,” he mumbles. Stiles grins at him and claps his shoulder as he sits up.

“‘Morning, buddy. Time to wake the troops and get ready to head out? The sun’s coming up.”

Scott nods as he rubs his face, yawning and stretching his arms out. “Yeah, we better head out soon. We want to reach with plenty of daylight to set up.”

Stiles pulls him to his feet with a grip on his elbow and moves back towards the kitchen to start preparing some breakfast as Scott moves around the room waking everyone else up.

The room gets noisier with rustling and murmuring as the rest of the group wake up and start packing away their sleeping bags and allocating out the newly acquired supplies between different packs.

Erica joins him in the kitchen not long after he’s finished buttering the last slice of toast. He goes to add it to the leaning tower of bread he’s made at the end of the bench and grins as she takes it straight from his hand.

Her eyes are still half closed and her hair is mussed and standing up on one side as she eats her toast with one hand and rubs her eyes with the other.

“G’mornin’” she mumbles, her mouth barely moving to form the words. She’s not a great morning person.

“Good morning to you too, Erica,” he says, grinning at her obnoxiously. Stiles isn’t really a morning person either but for him this doesn’t really count as morning so he takes great pleasure in rubbing his awake-ness in her face.

“Asshole,” she mutters and flips him the bird but Stiles can see she’s smiling fondly at him from behind her toast.

They lean against the counter together in silence as she makes her way through her piece. The others come in, moving around them to get their share of food and to gather up any remaining supplies.

Once Erica’s eaten the last bite, Stiles pulls the marker from his pocket and holds it out for her, offering a tight half smile. She wipes the crumbs off her fingers and nods at him, taking the marker from his hand.

Stiles leads her through the busy main room, threading through the others as they get ready to go. They pass between Jackson and Mason stuffing bags and where Melissa is looking over Danny’s foot once more, and skirt around the Sheriff and Chris cleaning and reorganising the assorted guns. Allison looks up as they pass her restringing her bow but she says nothing, noting the marker gripped tight in Erica’s white-knuckled hand. They get a few more looks as they head towards the back office but no one mentions anything.

Everyone knows what they’re going to do. It’s what they do at every building they stop at along the way, no matter how long they stay.

Stiles shuts the door behind them, cutting off the noise from the others abruptly. The sudden silence rings in his ears. When he looks over at Erica she’s got her eyes closed, breathing slowly and deliberately through her nose and out her mouth. Her breaths are only a little shaky.

With one last deep breath, she opens her eyes and uncaps the sharpie determinedly. The scent of the ink seeps into the air as she moves forward, the sharp stench of chemicals tingling in Stiles’ nose. She kneels in front of a blank spot on the back wall and begins to write.

Every building they go into has some kind of writing on the walls. Sometimes it’s just graffiti from bored survivors passing through but most often what’s left there are messages. Some are open letters from people to anyone coming after about the places to avoid, where it’s safest, spreading rumours of havens and CEDA checkpoints. A lot of the time they’re just shouts into the void, a feeble attempt at some kind of human connection at the end of the world.

Most of the messages, though, are addressed to the family they hope might be following behind. Letting their loved ones know they’re okay, still heading for the same place, still thinking of them, begging that they catch up soon.

Stiles had been leaving notes in every building they passed through ever since they left Beacon Hills, trying to leave a trail for the others as they ~~hopefully~~ followed behind, letting them know where they were, how they were doing. Scott had written a few in the first few days but lately he’d been focusing his attention elsewhere. Stiles wasn’t giving up on them though, not yet.

He’d first offered Erica the sharpie the morning after the first night he’d heard her quietly crying herself to sleep. She’d left little love notes to Boyd on walls all the way down this long road. Sometimes, he thinks she uses it more as a therapeutic task rather than actually contacting who she’s lost. He doesn’t know how to make her believe in hope again.

Stiles looks up at the click of the marker being capped. Erica pushes herself to her feet and holds it out to him. She wipes roughly at the moisture gathered under her eyes.

“You’re up, batman,” she says, her smile bitter.

Stiles takes the pen and doesn’t comment. Just offers her an empathetic smile and clasps her shoulder for a moment as she passes him. She turns back and nods at him in thanks before slipping back through the door. The burst of sound is cut off again quickly as the door clicks shut behind her.

He moves closer to the wall, glancing at the other bits of writing that cover the plaster. Scribbles and block letters, heartfelt letters to missing lovers and angry scrawls begging for a reason or condemning the government’s handling of it all. Stiles avoids looking at what Erica just wrote, keeping the block of her small, cramped letters out of his line of sight. It isn’t his place to know what she left for Boyd. He doesn’t think he wants to know, in case she’s given up.

Stiles sighs and uncaps the pen again, finds his own place on the wall, and begins his own message.

* * *

 

 

> _Derek, Malia, Boyd, Kira_
> 
> _Hope you lot are doing alright and aren’t too much further behind. Scott’s been driving us a quick as possible towards the next town so he hasn’t given you a lot of chance to catch up but still, hurry up. We miss you all._
> 
> _Hope the supplies we’ve been leaving you every building have been useful. Hope you guys have actually been stopping to pick them up._
> 
> _Still heading South, still heading towards Cora. Melissa says we need to stop a few days to let Danny’s foot have some time to heal properly. Maybe that’ll give you the time you need to meet up again. The town we’re gonna stop at is just off the highway, come find us there maybe._
> 
> _Kira: your dad is fine, great advice when it comes to cooking – we had a feast last night. Scott doing okay but he needs you so make sure you get here soon_
> 
> _Boyd: keep em safe, man. Erica misses you but she probably already told you that_
> 
> _Malia: stay wild but don’t do anything stupid. Come back in one piece_
> 
> _And Derek: ~~I~~ Well you know. Just come home, okay?_
> 
> _Look after yourselves. We’ll see you soon,_
> 
> _Stiles, June 23 (pretty sure)_

* * *

 

The day is already warm from the sun when they finally head out from the gas station. It’s not yet midday but it is much later in the morning than Isaac would have liked to set out. Stiles can see his discontent in the set of his shoulders as he walks ahead of the pack.

The days are getting a lot warmer, summer really starting to set in. The air is dry and Stiles finds they’re going through their water supply quicker than usual. He makes a note to look for more bottles at the next opportunity. They’re gonna need them.

They stop for lunch when the sun is high in the sky. They’ve been belted with its heat all day without the cover of clouds to stave off its rays. Instead of eating on the road, today they move off into the forest, following Scott’s ears to a small stream threading through the trees.

It’s far enough into the tree line that they can no longer see the road and not really the safest option. The trees all around them provide too much cover for anything lurking in the gloom created by the leaves’ shadows. But everyone needed a break from the heat and eating with bare feet cooling in the stream is much more comfortable than burning your ass on the hot tarmac of a road.

Jackson hands around packets of dried fruit and they sit together under the shade of the trees to eat, talking softly amongst each other. They’d been passing signs leading up to the turn off for the town since they left the gas station and were getting close. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too much farther and they’d still have enough daylight to look around in.

Under Melissa’s insistence that they give Danny’s foot a few days rest, Scott had decided they were going to fortify a street in the town and stay a while. He’d been bouncing ideas off of Isaac, Stiles and Chris all day. Now with everyone sitting together, he could lay out how he wanted to set up camp and get it all done before nightfall.

“So I think we should clear out a whole street – Isaac and I looked at the map and picked one that looks good – and blockade it at both ends so nothing can sneak up on us. That way we can hole up for a few days without worrying about getting trapped or overrun.”

Jackson nods his head. “That’s a good idea,” he says. “If we set up a few houses then we won’t all be living out of each other’s pockets for a while. Might be nice to get away from you geeks for a bit.”

Scott just pokes out his tongue half-heartedly; Jackson’s douchey comments are usually made in good humour nowadays.

“And sleeping in actual beds for once would be nice too,” Finstock puts in with a grin. “With _pillows_. God, my back is gonna appreciate that.” There are quite a few answering grins and nods of agreement around the circle. Everyone is looking forward to something soft to put their head on.

“It’ll also give us a few extra days to explore and pick up as many supplies as we can,” Mason says. “We’re gonna need so many more water bottles if this heat keeps up.”

“Good idea, Mason,” Scott grins at him. Mason nods back. Neither of them really talk these days, both too much of a reminder for each other of Liam and what happened.

By the time everyone has finished eating and they’re ready to head off again, they’ve got a detailed plan organised and everyone knows their tasks for when they finally get into town. It really wasn’t their best plan but it wasn’t their worst either.

***

_Two weeks after the outbreak – 13th of June_

It’s not a great plan but it’s all they’ve got at the moment and they don’t exactly have the time to figure out a new one. The number of undead wandering the streets of Beacon Hills had increased exponentially over the last few days and it was leave now or wait to be overrun and eaten.

Stiles had hoped for at least a week to plan it out and gather what they needed but it looked like he was barely going to get a day. Scott announced this morning after getting back from a run down to the Argents’ place that they were leaving tonight. Even he couldn’t deny anymore that Beacon Hills just wasn’t going to last much longer.

“I’m just saying there’s a lot of supplies and stuff that we’ll be wasting if we don’t bring them with us,” Melissa says. They’re still trying to convince Scott of the plan that she, Chris, Stiles and Derek had been working on all day. They’re only a few hours from dusk, when they need to set it in motion, so they really need to get him on board.

“But splitting up into so many groups seems too risky,” Scott argues back. He wipes his face, frustrated. “What if something goes wrong? What if we can’t find each other?”

Stiles nods emphatically. “Yeah, yeah,” he says. “ _That’s_ why we’ve got to time it exactly right, so that everyone gets where they need to be exactly and makes it to the meet up points.” Stiles points at the map again. “The group that goes for the cars will meet up with whoever goes to the Sheriff station here, then they’ll collect the guys from the Argent house and then everyone meets up on the road out of town to wait for the group who ends up at school. _Then_ we all high-tail it out of here.”

***

_23rd of June_

They reach the turn off maybe only an hour after they set off again. Stiles hangs back, lets the others walk ahead of him before he pulls out the sharpie again. He knows it’s dumb to advertise where they are, other groups aren’t necessarily going to be friendly, but he has to, just in case they aren’t as far behind as the others seem to think. In case they overshoot.

He’s tall but so is the sign, he has to shimmy up the side of one pole with his legs wrapped around it. With one hand still holding him up, he uncaps the pen with his teeth and draws as far as he can reach.

When drops back down, twisting his ankle awkwardly as he does because _of course_ , he steps back for a second to look at his handiwork. He hopes it just looks like random graffiti to the untrained eye. He hopes more that it’s clear enough for the trained ones to get the message.

He hefts his bag back onto his shoulder and follows his pack off the highway, leaving the shakily drawn trisklelion on the sign for the turn off.

Derek will understand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> O my god I am so sorry this took so long. Real life kinda got away from me and I've spent, what 3 months?, trying to catch up. Bloody Uni -__-  
> But I'm on holidays now so I'm starting the next chapter soon and hopefully I'll have it out by the end of July. No promises though, we've already seen how terrible I am at deadlines.
> 
> Anyway, thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed it. Please comment or come find me on tumblr [here](http://im-a-weredonkey.tumblr.com/) if you wanna chat about anything in the story or anything. Any tips or constructive criticism is more than welcome :)


	4. Dead Air

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek, Kira, Boyd and Malia have been trapped under the rubble of the school for too long. They need to find a way out and back to their pack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ha.  
> Ha ha ha.  
> Ha hahahahahahahahaha  
> O god I'm sorry  
> Did I say July? I meant fucking February.  
> I am the worst.
> 
> Seriously though, I am so bad at deadlines and I am so sorry. BUT here is a new chapter and it’s way longer than the last one AND from Derek’s point of view which is new and exciting, so.... yay?  
> I’m not even going to bother with an ETA for the next chapter because by now I think we’ve all realised I will just fail. All I will say is however long it takes, I am sorry but it is coming.

_23 rd of June_

It’s been ten days since Derek last saw the sky.

He knows because he’s been counting the hours on Boyd’s watch since the roof caved in and they got trapped in here. What they had planned as a few small explosions, mostly noise and light rather than any actual force, had gone a little too well and a little too early. They hadn’t even stood a chance of getting out before the walls started to crumble.

Ten days since any of them breathed fresh air. Not a single breath of air that wasn’t stale, air that wasn’t tainted by rotting flesh and plaster dust and their own sweat. He knows there’s no chance the rest of the pack waited for them, not for this long and not when they had no way of knowing if they’d even survived the explosions.

Derek knows that even if Scott still had hope for them, he’s learned to be pragmatic enough to know that they had to keep moving and get out of town. He wouldn’t risk waiting for people they didn’t even know would come. Derek trusts that he and Isaac will manage to get everyone out, even... the ones that will demand they wait.

He just wishes he’d said a proper goodbye to the rest of the pack before they’d set out to put their plan of escape into action. He never gets a chance to say goodbye before the people he cares about are ripped away from him. Not with Paige, not with his parents, not with Laura. Not with his new pack.

The second hand of the watch in his hand ticks its way back up to the twelve and another hour passes quietly by. Derek lets a claw grow out and starts on making another scratch on the broken piece of concrete he’s leaning against.

Malia sighs over the low scratching noises it makes and rolls her eyes. Kira shoots her a look though and she doesn’t say anything about it. They’ve had that argument enough that everyone knows it’s pointless to continue. No one is going to back down. Instead she stands up, wiping futilely at the grime staining her jeans, and joins Boyd at the other end of the room (well, room is probably too generous a description. The other end of the space that is not covered in fallen roof and wall). She squats next to him and starts shifting the debris around as well.

Ten days, and they’ve barely made a hole big enough for a rat to crawl through. A hole which only leads to more corridor and more debris. At least it gives them more of an idea of what the rest of the building looks like.

It seems as though only the back half of the school’s main building had been affected by the blast. It would have worked fine with the plan, having trapped a bunch of zombies in the gym when the walls crumbled. The only hitch had been the fact that the four of them were still inside.

The corridor they were digging into was thankfully empty of undead, perhaps due to the toppled banks of lockers across the hallway. The zombies currently didn’t know they were there and so weren’t going to the effort to climb over the obstacles.

Kira shifts over to Derek, nudging his arm with a water bottle. She’s smiling but there’s no lightness in it and her brow is crinkled with concern. She’s trying to get him out of his own head, to stop him from brooding. He smiles at her but shakes his head at the offered water. He isn’t that thirsty and they’re starting to run low. If they didn’t manage to get out from under here soon, it wouldn’t be the undead that killed them, it would be dehydration and hunger – they’re only supplies were what they’d had with them when the walls collapsed, and not much left of it.

Kira smiles back and shrugs, recapping the bottle and replacing it in her backpack. She pulls out her phone again but they both know there’s really no point, they hadn’t gotten reception _before_ the roof caved in and they certainly weren’t going to now there was a tonne of concrete around them.

She turns it on, waiting as the screen lights up and checking the battery levels. A blinking red cross shows up beside the little battery sign. Soon they wouldn’t even have this lifeline of hope to cling to. This time though, Kira doesn’t even bother trying for reception. She just flicks through until she finds a game, something with little birds flying at pigs, and leans back next to him to play.

Derek watches over her shoulder and smiles when she cheers softly at passing another level. They stay like that until the screen goes dark abruptly and won’t light back up. Kira watches the blank screen for only a second before she sighs and chucks the phone away. They watch it skid, useless now, over bits of debris until it hits what used to be a wall.

They sit in silence for a bit until Derek hears a sniffle. He shifts, turning to face Kira with one hand lifted, hovering over her shoulder. She smiles wobbly at him and wipes at her face, drying it roughly. She shakes her head at him and turns away with a bitter laugh.

“Nothing last forever,” she says, her voice cracked and dry. “At least I got a last bit of fun of it, hey?”

Derek lets his hand drop to his lap again. He opens his mouth, not knowing quite what to say only that he wants to say _something;_ that he wants to comfort her and tell her that they’ll be alright even though they won’t be, they really won’t. He’s interrupted before he can even make a noise by a shout from Malia.

Derek and Kira both turn quickly at the noise to see Boyd grinning widely at them and Malia scrabbling at the hole they’ve managed to widen, big enough that they could all now squeeze through.

They’re finally free.

***

_30 th of May – 1 day before the outbreak_

Summer hasn’t quite started yet but already the dry air feels stifling with heat. The hot weather is setting in, the kind where even the flies are lethargic and doing much more but lounging around feels like too much.

Derek’s never really enjoyed the heat; he’d much rather the crisp bite of fall and the green-smelling rains of spring. Even snow is better than this.

And here he is, contemplating the merits of the seasons when he could be doing something more productive; this is what the summer does to him.

With a sigh, Derek heaves himself up off the couch and across the room to the fan he’s set up. He needs to get out of this loft, the wide window that lets in so much light also happens to let in a lot of heat and it’s not like he’s got climate control.

He can’t help but feel happy though. It’s been a while since he’s felt like he couldn’t get up, since the feeling of a weight on his chest made it seem as though he’d never stand up again. At least it’s only the heat that makes him sluggish today.

He’s been doing better, lately, since he started talking to a therapist, Morrell of all people but it’s hard to find someone he can actually share the supernatural details of his life with.

It had been Stiles’ suggestion and it had taken a while for Derek to take him up on it. Looking back and seeing his own progress, Derek’s really glad he did. Stiles had been good to him, for a long time Derek had been alone and his grief and guilt had made him do a lot of stupid things, make a lot of mistakes. But Stiles, he’d helped Derek start making up for those mistakes, helped him to stop looking back and letting his past hang over him. Of course he still had bad days, and he would always have that guilt and grief but he was getting closer and closer to being okay. To being happy. And isn’t that what his family would have wanted for him?

Derek smiles to himself, glancing at the clock above the couch. Quarter to three: close enough. He grabs a bottle of water from the fridge and his keys from the bench and hightails it out to his car. The moment he starts the engine the air-con kicks in and it’s like he can breathe again. Derek just revels in it a moment as he’s blasted in the face by cool air.

It doesn’t take long to drive to the high school; the roads are mostly empty so early in the afternoon on a Friday. Summer’s starting though and it won’t last.

Derek parks amongst the student cars, and kills the engine but leaves the keys in to keep the air con on. He can see the doors through the windshield so there’s no point in getting out into the sun yet.

The bell rings and Derek grins at the cheers his wolf-enhanced ears pick up from inside the school. The last day of term always brings the same celebrations, from freshmen right through to seniors. He stays in the car a moment longer though, even as his ears are already twitching to pick up the voices of his pack from among the ruckus.

The seniors come bursting through the doors first with shouts and screams of joy, running out into the car park and throwing their books up into the air. Derek remembers his own graduation; it had been much more subdued, having only been a year or so since the fire, but Laura had still taken him out for pizza that night to celebrate. It had been bittersweet, without their parents and Cora there too but it was still one of his happiest memories from that year. Laura had spent a bit more than they’d really had in the budget but they’d joked and smiled all night.

Derek’s pulled from the memory when he finally picks up a voice he recognises. It’s Stiles, because of course it’s Stiles, and he’s yelling about freedom and no homework and it’s only moments later that the doors burst open a second time to reveal him, the rest of the pack just behind.

Derek pries himself away from the air-conditioning and climbs out his car to greet them. Stiles is walking backwards down the stairs, airs thrown up in the air and his joyful screaming is even louder than the seniors. Derek can’t help but join the others in laughing at him as he stumbles on the last step, grabbing Scott’s arm and wailing about near death experiences.

Scott catches Derek’s eye over Stiles shoulder while he’s still waxing poetic about his alpha saving his life, and rolls his eyes. Derek tries to return the unimpressed look with one of his own but he can’t hold back the grin from his face. It’s this. This is what he’d been looking for all those years when it was just him and Laura, when he was trying to build his own pack. He just wanted to laugh and feel like he belonged to something better than himself again.

The others make their way over to him, throwing greetings his way with grins and laughs and cheers at the beginning of summer. Erica almost tackles him in a hug before falling into conversation with Boyd and Kira again while Scott ends up leaning against the car next to Derek just grinning at everyone and everything.

The whole pack is gathered around chatting excitedly about plans for the holidays – parties, road trips to the beach, pack dinners and movie nights and just everything that Derek has needed to hear all day. Stiles and Malia are talking excitedly across from them and Isaac and Erica are joking around about something or other. Mason still looks mostly overwhelmed by everything but Kira’s chatting to him now with a gentle smile. Jackson, Danny, Lydia and Liam are all discussing a party that’s apparently happening tonight, an end of term thing hosted by one of the graduated seniors and his college-age brother.

Scott turns to him with a grin. “Hey Derek!” he says. “You should come along too, it’s gonna be heaps of fun and we haven’t hung out in ages.”

Derek frowns. “Uh,” he says, unsure. “Are you sure you want me there? I’m a bit old for a high school party don’t you think?” He forces a laugh, shifting awkwardly.

Lydia turns to him then and smiles. “Ralph’s older brother is back from college for the summer and is co-hosting for his friends too. Don’t worry; you won’t be the oldest one there.”

“And of course we want you to come!” jumps in Kira, slipping through the group to sling an arm around his neck in a half-hug. “You’re pack, and we haven’t had a whole pack hang out in too long. Please come, please!” She drags the last please out into a childish whine and pouts.

Scott laughs at that but elbows Derek. “It’d be nice if you came along, Derek, but you don’t have to if you’re not up for it.”

Derek sighs and tries to look put upon. He doesn’t think he really makes it work what with the grin breaking onto his face. No matter how many times they tell him, it’s nice to be reminded that they do want him around and not just for his usefulness in dealing with supernatural stuff.

“We’ll see,” he says and Kira cheers.

Everyone starts moving off towards their respective rides with promises to see each other later that night. Derek waves as Kira and Scott head towards Scott’s bike, both pulling helmets from their backpacks. Liam and Mason pile into Jackson’s car as Jackson screeches about his leather and their shoes and Danny looks on in fits of laughter. Lydia and Allison are taking Lydia’s car back to her place to get ready for the party together, and Malia, Kira and Erica promise to swing by to meet them there later.

Derek pushes off the side of his car to make room for Isaac and Boyd to pile into the backseat and Erica slips round the front to take shotgun. It’s been a while since it was just the four of them as a pack, and he fucked up a lot in how he acted as their alpha but they all still feel bonded over it and when they get the chance, Derek likes to be the one to drive them all home.

He’s about to slip into the driver’s seat when he notices Stiles still hovering beside him. Derek smiles at him and waves. They hadn’t had a chance to really catch up since the selkie incident last weekend. Stiles waves back with a smile of his own.

“Stiles!” Malia calls over from where she’s half hanging out of Stiles’ jeep. “Hurry up! It’s hot out and your air-con fucking sucks!”

Stiles rolls his eyes but looks fond as he shouts back over his shoulder. “I’ll be there in a sec just give me a moment! Also you take that back! Roscoe tries his very best to cool us, he just takes a while to kick in.” He and Malia aren’t dating anymore and their relationship dynamic has shifted to feel much more like one between siblings. Derek can’t help but be reminded of Cora whenever they yell at each other and he grins.

Stiles turns back to Derek still pretending to look offended on his jeep’s behalf. Derek just shakes his head in amusement.

“So, happy for the holidays to finally be here?” he asks, not sure what else to say.

“Fuck yes!” Stiles heaves dramatically. “Don’t think I would have survived a moment more of Finstock droning on about economics or whatever it is he’s not teaching us.”

Derek rolls his eyes at him. “You’ve survived harpies; surely you can survive boring classes.”

Stiles just shakes his head. “Oh, poor misinformed Derek,” he says, fighting a grin. “Harpies are nothing. Finstock’s lecturing on economic policy, on the other hand. Now there is something we should have a chapter on in the bestiary. So deathly boring it must be supernatural!”

Derek laughs at him and Stiles grins back. They fall silent for a beat before Stiles nudges him with his elbow.

“So the party,” he says and looks away. “You really should come. The whole rest of the pack is going to be there and it feels more complete when you’re with us too.”

Derek ducks his head and smiles. “Yeah?” he says. “Okay. ‘Spose I’ll think about coming along then.”

Stiles grins, turning back to face him. “Really?”

Derek shrugs to hide how he kind of wants to wrap Stiles in a hug. Or maybe just spend the rest of his life here grinning with him. “Sure, why not?”

“Awesome,” Stiles says. “See you there then.” He calls it over his shoulder as he jogs across the car park to his jeep.

Derek waves after him. “See you.”

He’s still grinning when he finally climbs back into the driver’s seat and turns the car back on. Boyd and Isaac are still chatting softly in the back, not paying any attention as the car peels out of the lot but Derek can feel Erica’s eyes boring a hole in the side of his head.

“What?” he asks her, somewhat petulantly and refusing to look over at her. He knows what; he just hopes she won’t bring it up. Again.

Erica shakes her head and sighs in exasperation. “You _know_ what,” she says. “I don’t know why you don’t just talk to him?”

Derek glances over at her and narrows his eyes. “Wasn’t I literally just doing that?” he snarks.

Erica rolls her eyes at him. “Ha, ha,” she says, sarcasm dripping from her voice. “Again, you know what I meant. I don’t know why you don’t just _tell_ him.”

Derek wonders if opening the door and barrel-rolling away from this conversation is a viable option. Probably not, considering he’s the one driving. Instead he just sighs long and loud at her, pointedly, and keeps his eyes fixed on the road. Maybe if he offers no response she’ll drop it.

Yeah, like that’s worked any other time.

Erica’s relentlessness really does remind him of Laura though. She’d been this pushy back when they were kids and she’d noticed his first crush. He’d gotten good at ignoring her though so maybe he could remember some of his old techniques and use them now.

“Derek,” Erica sounds disappointed now. Just great, she’s moving into Mom-Voice territory. What was with this girl, he’s like four years older than her why was she trying to parent him? “The first step is admitting your feelings to yourself. Surely you can manage at least that.”

Derek grits his teeth to stop himself from poking out his tongue. He has to remind himself sometimes that he’s supposed to be these kids’ adult role model or something. Ha, good luck to them, then.

“What makes you think I’m living in denial of my feelings?” he asks her, knowing full well that this is just going to fan the flames but not really caring anymore. Maybe talking about it with her will make her realise that it’s a dumb idea and then she’ll leave it alone for good. Switching tactics. Yes this might work. (He has hope, anyhow.)

“The fact you haven’t so much as mentioned them to anyone, let alone acted on them,” Erica replies and Derek can tell she’s rolling her eyes at him even though he can’t see her. “Maybe if you’d admitted them to yourself we wouldn’t have to put up with your pinning so much.”

Well that was just rude. “I do not _pine_ ,” Derek says, affronted. Who the hell is pinning? Not Derek, that’s who.

There’s a scoffing noise from the back. “Sure,” comes Isaac’s voice, dripping with sarcasm. “So you’ve never zoned out during pack night thinking about Stiles’ hair, yeah?”

Derek catches his eye in the rear-view mirror and glares. “That was one time,” he grits out.

Isaac’s answering grin is positively shit-eating. “Oh, so you admit that that is what distracted you now then?”

Fuck. He hadn’t meant to say that at all. Stupid betas and their stupid meddling.

Erica must catch his deer-in-the-headlights moment because suddenly she’s breathless with hysterical laughter and Isaac is giggling along with her. Derek glances back at Boyd, searching for support from the other two’s incessant terribleness but Boyd’s grinning too. The traitor.

“You’re all terrible,” he says. “I don’t know what in the name of all that is holy possessed me to choose you lot as a pack.”

That, of course, just sets them off laughing again – even Boyd is chuckling now – and despite still feeling positively affronted by their blasé disregard for his former authority over them he can’t help but fight a smile too. Their laughter is contagious and it makes a warm feeling settle in his chest. Less than a year ago there would have been no way that they would be able to laugh like this. But everything settled down since then, they still had some supernatural situation that needed resolving almost every week but it was almost always something small and easily managed. Mostly the pack just hung out for the sake of being together nowadays and it was just... good.

Derek pulls up out the front of the Boyd family home and kills the engine. They all sit together for a moment as the laughter dissipates. Erica wipes at her eyes before turning to face Derek properly.

“Look,” she says, her voice serious again. “We get that you’re worried about whether it’ll work out with Stiles, if he’ll even give it a chance and all that, but... well, Derek I can promise you that you won’t lose anything out of taking a chance on this. None of us will let that happen.”

Derek breaks eye contact with her, needing to escape from the sincerity in her eyes. “I know,” he says, voice small. “I just – being friends with Stiles has literally been the best thing to happen to me in such a long time. I don’t want to lose that, you know?”

A hand lands on his shoulder and Derek glances up. Boyd looks him in the eye for a long moment before squeezing his shoulder and nodding at him.

“You won’t lose anything,” he says, surety in his voice. “We won’t let that happen. Stiles would _never_ let that happen. He values your friendship too, you know that.”

Derek lets a weak smile escape onto his face and just nods in response. Boyd leans back then and swings the door open.

“Thanks for the lift, Derek,” he says as he climbs out of the car. Derek waves back at him.

Erica leans over the gearshift and pecks him on the cheek. Derek pretends to scowl and wipes the lipstick off of his cheek.

“Trust us, Derek,” she says. “Just tell him how you feel and give him a chance, okay?”

She pats his cheek once before climbing out too and following Boyd up the path to his house.

Derek sighs and turns the engine back on, not startled at all when Isaac falls into the seat beside him from the back. The car peels away from the curb and they head towards Scott’s house, where Isaac’s been staying again. He tends to shift around to different pack members’ houses but he has an obvious preference for staying with the McCalls.

“We’re all rooting for you two,” he says. “Erica ships it hard.”

Derek rolls his eyes, not sure if he quite understands the words used but the sentiment comes through loud and clear.

“I’ll think about talking to him, alright?” he says.

Isaac leans back in his seat with a grin. “That’s all we ask,” he says.

Derek just shakes his head at him. “Seatbelt,” he says, pointedly.

He can pretty much feel the eye-roll from Isaac. He grins when he hears the click of the belt being buckled.

The idea of going to the party seems a lot more appealing to Derek now. He thinks about how Stiles had looked at him when he’d asked him to go. Maybe he will talk to him, tonight.

***

_23 rd of June_

The smell hits them first. Stepping through the door almost feels like walking into a wall and Derek stumbles back a few paces, pulling the door shut again as he falls back into Malia. His hands rush up to hold his nose.

“Watch it,” Malia cries out, hitting his shoulders to push him upright and back towards the doors to the school cafeteria.

Derek tries to reply but all he manages is to gag into his hands. He spins back to face the others, holding out a hand and shaking his head. His eyes are watering as he coughs.

Boyd raises an eyebrow. “That bad?” he asks.

Kira looks concerned, but Malia just rolls her eyes. “You’re so _dramatic_ , Derek,” she says, exasperated. She steps past him, shrugging off his hand when he tries to stop her. “It can’t be that bad.”

“Wait, are you sure you wanna...” Kira calls out, stepping forward to stop her, but too late.

Derek holds his breath as Malia pulls the door back open. The look on her face when the stench hits her is almost worth the scent of rotting flesh and putrefying food that hits him again as he tries to keep his nose blocked.

Almost. It’s not a smell he has any particularly good memories attached to. Still better than the smell of ash and smoke and blood though. There are days when Derek can’t even conceive a day where fire didn’t hover at the edge of his sense, days where guilt gnaws at his stomach and he barely feels like he can get out of bed. Those days had been coming less and less lately, with the pack and helping Scott navigate being an alpha, with Stiles grinning at him like maybe everything could be okay.

But that had been before. Now the world was ending, the dead were walking around and killing everything. Now the smell of death was inescapable, a constant reminder of everything he’s lost, of all the times he’s fucked up and someone he loved has died...

Derek startles back to the present with the slam of the door and the sound of Malia gagging.

“Ok,” she says, hoarse and coughing still. “I take it back. That– that was an entirely the right reaction.”

Derek shakes himself a bit and plasters on a grin. Trying for lightly teasing but sounding too strained to make it convincing he says, ‘serves you right’ and rubs her back through the last of her coughing.

If the others notice his shifted mood they don’t react. Malia just flips him off with a smirk while Kira giggles at her and Boyd grins widely.

They’re probably all used to his moods now, Derek thinks, considering that they’d all been pretty settled as pack for about a year now. Most of the pack had been good about leaving him to himself when he got like this; it’s usually only Stiles who kept trying to get something out of him. Not that that is going to be an issue here and now.

He’s glad they don’t notice. He doesn’t want anyone to start worrying about him again. He’s fine. What they should be worrying about is what they should do next.

Derek clears his throat, trying to shake himself out of it and back to normal, and the others glance back to him.

“So my guess is this place is a bust,” he starts, glancing around at the remnants of their pack. “We should try the general store, maybe. It’s not too close to the centre of town so it shouldn’t be overrun and we didn’t hit it when we were gathering supplies last week. There should still be stuff there.”

Boyd shrugs. “It’s as good an idea as any at this point,” he says and the girls both make noises of agreement.

“Not trying that door again, that’s for sure,” Malia mutters, with a glare at the door in question before spinning around and marching towards the front entrance of the school.

The rest of them follow her out the doors and into the sun. It’s still hot out, and seems to only be getting hotter. The heat seems to make the zombies sluggish too, so they only see two or three shuffling through the streets as they make their way up the back streets towards the general store. Boyd leads the way, making use of his knowledge of the best shortcuts through town, and takes them in a wide arc to avoid the town centre.

They hover in front of the store’s doors for a moment when they arrive, none of them willing to risk setting off an alarm and calling a hoard of undead things down on them. In the end, Malia just huffs impatiently and kicks the door.

It’s open and swings freely to bang against the wall. They all flinch at the noise and freeze but nothing comes rushing out to attack.

“Well that was easy,” Boyd says, with one eyebrow raised. Kira laughs at that and picks her way into the store, sword pulled from her belt and held out in front.

They spread out, pulling any packaged and unspoiled food from the shelves and shoving them into their bags. Derek head over to the fridges, long since shut off, and holds his breath to open the doors. He avoids the milk drinks but grabs all the bottled water he can carry and throws in a few sports drinks too.

When they’ve gathered enough to fill their backpacks and then some, they meet in the middle of the store. Kira sits cross legged in the floor, leaning against a shelf of mouldy bread. She rips open a bag of chips and holds them out. “Lunch anyone?” she says with a smile.

Derek grins back and drops down next to her, swapping a handful of chips with one of the soft drinks he grabbed. They won’t be much good for hydration while they’re on the run but for now it’s a treat.

Boyd and Malia sit down too, across from them against a shelf that’s mostly empty now. The four of them pass around some of the food they’d gathered, just enough for lunch – the rest gets packed away into extra bags to take with them.

“I guess we should talk about our next move?” Kira asks, after they’ve all mostly had their fill.

“We should meet up with the pack,” Derek says. “Besides getting through this unharmed, that should be our top priority.”

Boyd frowns. “How are we gonna do that, though?” he says. “It’s not like we know where the rest of them have gone.”

“They had _cars_ , Derek,” Malia cuts in. “They’ll be miles away by now. We can’t possibly catch up and there’s no way they’ll have waited this long.”

Derek catches Kira’s face fall even as he nods at what Malia is saying. She’s been held up by the hope that they’d be reunited soon. She’d been thinking that Scott wouldn’t leave without them, not unless he knew for sure they hadn’t made it.

“We can check around town,” Derek says, reaching out to comfort Kira. He drops his hand before he connects though, he can’t help her. “We’ll see if they’re still around, but I really don’t think they will be. Scott’s smart; he knows that the best thing for the pack would be to get out of here quick as possible. They’ve got no way of knowing if we even survived the blast.”

Derek notices Boyd’s jaw clench at that, knows he must be thinking about Erica, how hard she’d argued for them to be in a group together. Derek closes his eyes against the guilt and refuses to think about how he and Stiles had worked together organising their escape from Beacon Hills, refuses to think about Stiles at all.

“But we know where they were _going_ ,” Kira says. She sounds defiant, confident. “We might be slower than the cars but we’re all were-somethings. We can follow them and we will eventually catch up. They’ve got to stop some time.”

Derek looks up at her and smiles. “You’re right,” he says. “They’re in a much bigger group, we could catch up.”

“At the most we could follow their trail ‘til they meet up with Cora, but who knows where they’ll go after that?” Malia argues. “Look, I want to meet up with the pack just as much as you guys but I _don’t_ want to be following a wild goose chase across the state when we should be concentrating on not _dying_.”

“We picked south not just to meet up with Cora but because all the reports said that they were trying to organise safe houses and centres down there,” Kira says, frowning at Malia. “Even if we don’t –” Kira closes her eyes and takes a breath before continuing. “Even if we don’t find them we might find somewhere to stay in safety.”

Boyd nods. “She has a point,” he says to Malia.

Malia looks like she might argue but doesn’t. Instead, she nods. “Alright then, we follow the original plan then. Take as much as we can carry and head south.”

Kira nods. “We look out for signs that the others went through the same places and do our best to catch up.” Kira turns and smiles at Derek reassuringly before adding, “And to find Cora.”

“And if we find somewhere that looks like we could stay long term safely away from these things,” Malia adds, “we stay.”

Everyone nods, determined and as a group they all stand up and quietly head back out onto the street.

Boyd speaks up then. “I know we said they’re probably gone but... can we check Scott’s house anyway? Before we go?”

They turn and look at Derek but he just looks back at them. It’s a long moment before Derek breaks it with a sigh. “I’m not your alpha,” he says. “I’m not and I don’t want to be. I am not in charge.”

They look at him a moment longer before Malia shrugs.

“Scott’s house it is then,” says Kira and turns to lead the way. Malia falls into step just behind her and Derek and Boyd follow. Boyd bumps his shoulder against Derek’s gently as they walk but he doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t have to. Derek turns slightly to throw him a small smile and Boyd nods back at him. They get each other.

When they reach it, the McCall house sits like it always has at the end of the path. Derek can tell before they even reach the door that there’s no one here but he stays quiet and lets the others look for themselves. For Kira, at least, this is going to be an act of letting go of a bit of hope and he’d rather she held on to it as long as she can.

Kira eases the front door open, careful of the squeak of the hinges and they all slip through into the house. They fan out, each heading into separate rooms, but Derek hangs back and stays near the door.

Malia wanders back after only a minute. “I can hear movement upstairs,” she says. “Did you catch it too?”

Derek nods, mouth set in a grim line.

Malia scrunches her nose up. “It doesn’t smell like any of them, they haven’t been here recently.”

“We probably don’t want to check upstairs then,” Boyd says as he pokes his head back out of the kitchen. “It’s not going to be anyone or anything we’re looking for and I’d rather not have to fight anything off.”

Malia hums in agreement and Derek sighs.

“I’ll go gather Kira up then,” he says. “And then we’ll head out of town.” Derek moves off into the living room after Kira while the other two slip back outside.

Derek keeps one ear on the sound of shuffling upstairs as he slips through the doorway, careful to avoid the creaky floorboard just to the left. He glances around the room, frowning when at the first glance he misses Kira. He turns around, about to leave the room to call up the stairs for her when he hears it.

He shifts back towards the centre of the room. “Kira?” he calls softly. He hears another sniffle from behind the couch. Derek closes his eyes a moment, steadying himself before he eases in behind it too and slumps down onto the floor beside the teenager. He’s close but not quite enough for their shoulders to brush.

Derek leans back against the back of the couch and tips his head to the side to look at Kira. She’s slumped forward with her legs hugged tight into her chest and her face hidden in her knees. Derek doesn’t think he’s ever seen her look so defeated, not even after they’d found out what had happened to her mother.

“Hey,” he says, quiet and gentle as possible. There’s a lump in his throat that’s hard to swallow past. “Hey Kira, look at me. Come on.”

Kira sniffles again but shakes her head without raising it. Her back trembles with an intake of breath that breaks off into a sob that almost sounds like ‘Scott.’ It breaks Derek’s heart.

“Hey, hey, no” he says, and he’s trying to be comforting but he thinks his own voice is starting to crack now. “ _Hey_ , it’s okay, it’s okay. We’re going to be okay. Look at us. We’re still in one piece and we’ve already been through so much. Alright, we are going to be alright.”

His words don’t seem to be very comforting, or perhaps she’s not even listening, but that first sob seems to have opened some kind of dam and Kira is now shaking in earnest. Her shoulders heave with each breath and her whole frame is wracked with her sobbing. Derek feels so lost. He isn’t built for this, hasn’t been for a long, long time.

Carefully, tentatively so she has time to pull away, Derek reaches an arm around her shoulders. When she doesn’t automatically shrug him off or push him away, he tugs lightly, pulling her tight against his side. She goes easily, tucks her head into his shoulder, gripping tightly to the front of his shirt. Derek tucks his chin over her head and whispers soothing nothings into her hair, the way he did whenever Cora crawled into his bed after nightmares when they were little.

It’s a long moment before Kira’s shaking subsides. Derek can feel a patch damp and sticky on his shoulder from her tears but he doesn’t pull away, just keeps holding her close until she’s ready to let go.

Finally, Kira does sit up, but she doesn’t move far. She slumps back against the couch and wipes roughly at her face, seeming more frustrated than anything else now. When she speaks, her voice is rough and cracked but she’s steady.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to lose it so badly.”

“Hey, no,” Derek says. “It’s okay, I promise. The world’s ending, if now isn’t an okay time to break down for a bit I don’t know what is.”

Kira smiles at him for that, it’s wobbly but it lights up her face a little and Derek thinks maybe that’s enough. The two of them sit together in the quiet for a moment longer, just taking comfort in each other.

“It’s just,” Kira starts, but cuts herself off when the words catch in her throat. “I already lost my– my mum, you know. And now my dad’s gone. My whole family. And, and _Scott_ and everyone and I don’t know how I’m supposed to –” She breaks off into another sob.

Derek reaches out for her again but she shakes her head. Her lips are pressed so tightly closed that all the colour has drained from them. She’s holding back her sobs and wiping roughly at her eyes and the tears that keep spilling from them.

Derek takes her hands in his and holds them gently.

“It’s okay to be upset about this,” he says, remembering what he wished he’d been told when he thought he’d lost everything. “It’s okay to cry, you don’t have to strong all the time. But you haven’t lost everyone. You have me. And you have Boyd and Malia. We’re all pack, okay? And that means we’re family. You’re my family and Malia’s family and Boyd’s family. And we’re going to look after each other until we make it back to the rest of our pack, our _family_. Okay? It’s going to be okay.”

Kira stares at him with something like hope behind her eyes but her downturned mouth and the frown about her eyes belies the fact she’s not sure it’s warranted. “Do you really think we can find them?” she asks.

Derek sighs and tips his head back for a moment. He chews his lip for a moment, before looking back at her. “Do you want comfort or do you want the truth?” he says.

Kira hesitates but determination hardens her face before she says, “the truth.”

Derek nods and closes his eyes. All he can see is Stiles' face laughing at him on a hot summer evening. He takes a deep breath and tries to make sure his voice won't shake or crack. “I think that the only thing we can do is hope that they are okay and keep ourselves okay. And then, one way or another, we’ll find our way back to each other. We _have to_ because how else is this world supposed to be bearable?”

Kira stays quiet, considering his answer. Finally, she nods and then pushed herself to her feet. She holds out a hand to Derek.

“Well then,” she says, with a smile that’s as many parts grim determination as it is hope. “We’d better head off then. No way we’ll find them if we stay here with the rotters, hey?”

Derek smiles up at her in return and grips her hand. “I suppose we’d better.”

The two of them hurry out of the house to where Malia and Boyd are waiting in the yard. They glance up as Derek and Kira come through the front door and they must have heard but they just nod at them both before turning and heading down the path to the road.

The four of them pick their way back to the main road and then turn south and out of town. None of them look back as they cross the town line and into the surrounding forest. There’s nothing left for them back there anyway. The only family they have left is each other and those that lie somewhere ahead of them on this road.

***

_10 th of June_

Derek can hear the shouting before he even makes it up the path. He tips his head back and heaves a sigh in exasperation.

Beside him, Peter lets out a low chuckle and raises an eyebrow at him in question. Derek just shakes his head.

“You do _not_ want to get involved in that,” he says. “They’ve been at this for as long as they’ve been staying here. I doubt we’ll reach a consensus today.” They make it up to the front door and Derek swings the door open before pointing Peter up the stairs. “You’ve been out there longer than me, go wash up first. Have a rest too, beds should be free.”

Peter just nods in thanks and wearily climbs the stairs. Derek sighs before turning and heading in the direction of the raised voices.

“Look around you! The world’s going to shit and Beacon Hills is not any different. We need to get out now before we’re the only fresh meat in town!”

Derek glances around the room to Malia, smiling slightly. He’d only dropped her off here yesterday before heading back out for Peter and already she’s going tooth-and-nail with the others. Typical. She really is a Hale girl.

“Look around _you_!” Scott’s yelling at her now. “We’re doing fine here, we’re safe. If we leave we’re gonna be on the road, in the open just waiting for something to attack us!”

Derek sighs loudly and collapses into a chair at the kitchen table. He doesn’t have the energy to have this debate standing up. Across from him, Stiles’ head rises from where it had been pressed firmly into the wood of the table. There’s a large red spot on his forehead from where he must have slammed it down in frustration. Derek can’t really blame him.

At Stiles raised eyebrow, Derek smiles at him, a little tiredly but trying for reassurance. He’s been gone a while, only dropping in for an hour yesterday and he knows Stiles has been worried. Derek tries not to feel guilty about being the cause of that and turns back to the conversation at hand.

“She’s right you know,” he says. “We might be safe now but the supplies we’ve got are going to start running low and it’s only going to get more and more dangerous to go out and find more. We’d be better off leaving now and trying to find somewhere safer.”

Scott turns so fast he might have given himself whiplash, if he wasn’t a wolf. “I thought you were on my side!” he cries, glaring daggers at Derek. “You were on my side last week!”

Derek fights the urge to snort at him and simply shrugs. Scott hasn’t seen what’s out there now, he has no idea what they’re going to be facing and Derek tells him as much. “Our best bet, like I said, is to try find somewhere else, less populated and with more readily accessible supplies. Beacon Hills just isn’t safe anymore.”

Scott looks set to argue but then his shoulders slump and he sighs. He frowns at Derek but he knows he is right. It’s Derek who’s been going out there and seeing what it’s like and Scott knows that. Scott _trusts_ him. Derek fights the rush of pride that floods through him every time he realises that.

Scott turns to Stiles to ask his opinion and they have a short exchange Derek smiles slightly when Stiles sides with him without hesitation. With the decision made to leave, Derek can already see Stiles’ eyes going distant as his mind starts whizzing through ideas and plans. It’s always fascinating to watch his brain at work. He’s usually so distractible but when he focuses on something like this, he’s always miles ahead of everyone else, making jumps and connections that no one else can see.

Derek’s knocked out of his reverie by Isaac hurtling down the stairs and into the kitchen.

“I found her!” he shouts, breathless and from that and the way his heart is beating, Derek can tell he is ecstatic. The massive grin on his face might also be a dead giveaway.

When he doesn’t clarify straight away Malia calls out impatiently, “Who?”

Derek has an inkling of an idea. Isaac has been looking for anyone that they know but they’ve gathered almost everyone and there is one person he’s been looking for harder than anyone else. Derek grins up at Isaac when he confirms it.

“Cora! She emailed everyone a message. She’s halfway here already. Said she’d left Mexico when the sickness first hit the news and has been hitchhiking north ever since. She only just got internet access now and says she’s almost halfway but can’t get anyone else to pick her up. Everyone’s too scared of the virus, I think. But she’s walking here!”

Derek stands up at that and frowns as concern rushes through him. “By herself?” he asks.

Isaac just shrugs and it makes Derek clench his teeth. His kid sister out in that chaos, alone?

Isaac shakes his head apologetically and says “She didn’t say. But whatever she’s doing, she can handle herself, you know that. She’s making her way up to us though! She’s _safe_.”

That thought makes Derek smile. “Yeah,” he breathes, letting out some of the tension in his back. “She’s safe.”

Scott starts talking about planning a way out of here and meeting up but all Derek can do is slump back in relief and smile. Stiles kicks at his foot gently and grins across at him, but his eyes are already going distant again as he slips back into planning mode so Derek only smiles back.

As the rest of room fills with conversation and planning, Derek stands up and crosses to Isaac. He touches his shoulder to get his attention and gestures toward the stairs with his head. Isaac follows him out of the kitchen and up to where all the laptops are set up together with Scott’s computer around his room.

“Do, do you think we could try and get in contact with her?” he asks quietly.

Isaac looks thoughtful for a moment before shrugging with a small smile. “I dunno,” he says. “It depends on whether she’s online or even got access anymore. I sent her a reply before I ran down so maybe she’s sent one back? I’ll check. It’s worth a try, yeah?”

Derek grins back, trying to get a grip on the hope rising in his chest. It’s been too long since he’d talked to Cora and the disappointment if they can’t get in contact is going to be crushing.

Isaac makes a noise of triumph over by a laptop and Derek glances over, eyebrows raised.

“She’s online!” he says to the unasked question. “Come say hi.”

Derek can’t possibly fight his smile now as he slips down onto the floor beside Isaac and takes the laptop so it’s half on each of their laps. Derek nearly chokes when he sees Cora’s face lit up on the screen. She looks tired and dirty, but generally okay and Derek thinks if he wasn’t already sitting he might have collapsed with relief.

“Hey,” she breathes with a smile. “Hey guys, it’s been too long, how are you all?”

Isaac grins back at her. “We’re all fine here,” he says. “Just gathering everyone together. Derek brought Peter in today and I think that’s everyone we’re going to find. Plan is to leave Beacon Hills and head south, meet up with you somewhere in between.”

Cora grins widely at that. “Sounds good, I’ll see you soon then.” Her eyes shift slightly, focusing on the other side of her screen before she addresses her brother. “Derek,” she says and even that sounds like a miracle. “How are you going?” As if this was a casual Skype session like they used to have every few weeks to catch up.

Derek shakes his head on a laugh. “I’m good, I’m good,” he says. “So much better for seeing you’re alright. How are you? Are you travelling with anyone? Do you trust them? Are you safe?”

Cora sighs, exasperated at the questions. “I’m fine, Derek,” she says. “I promise. You know I can look out for myself.”

“I know, I know,” Derek says. “Sorry, it’s just– with all of this... it’s hard to be sure, you know?”

Cora smiles and nods her head. “I know,” she says quietly. She looks away, at something outside their screen and when she glances back her face has hardened a little. “Look, I’ve gotta go, we’re heading out again. But it was so good to see you both.”

They both nod. “Stay safe, Cora,” Derek says.

“Yeah, and we’ll talk soon,” Isaac adds.

Cora smiles at them again. “I don’t know if I’ll have a signal again anytime soon but... I’ll see you soon, okay? You keep each other safe now. Love you. See ya, Isaac and thanks.” She blows a kiss at the camera before she signs out and screen goes blank again.

Derek sighs and closes his eyes. He’ll see her soon.

***

_23 rd of June_

The sun is reaching for the edge of the horizon and they’ve been walking for hours. They haven’t yet seen any signs of Scott and the pack, but Derek supposes that’s really to be expected. They had cars and a whole week’s head start; they wouldn’t have left much of a trail to follow.

None of them are human so they’ve been able to go further than they might have otherwise, able to take fewer breaks and maintain a faster pace, but it’s been miles and even that takes its toll.

Ahead of them, a building emerges out of the shadows, a darker mass in the dark of growing night. Derek sighs before calling out to the rest of his little pack.

“We’ll stop there tonight. We can’t keep going in the dark.”

Boyd glances over, his mouth set in a grim line. “We won’t ever catch up with them if we stop all the time.”

“They have _cars_ , Boyd,” Malia scoffs. “We aren’t going to catch up either way.”

“It’s too risky to keep going in the dark, even with enhanced senses. We’re tired and hungry; we need to stop,” Derek tells Boyd, and then he turns to Malia. “And they have a much larger group than us, it takes a lot more to mobilise that many people so they won’t be moving so quickly, even with cars. We _will_ catch up.”

Malia doesn’t look that convinced but both she and Boyd concede with a nod. Derek glances back at where Kira lags behind them to check how she’s going. Her supernatural abilities manifest different to the rest of them so he’s not sure if her stamina will hold up to that of the wolves and coyote. She seems alright though, just tired and world-weary. Still, she sends a reassuring smile his way when she catches his gaze and that’s enough for now.

As they get closer, more and more of the building’s shape emerges from the shadows. It’s a gas station, small and likely hardly visited even before the world ended.

They approach it cautiously even so, in case there are any infected inside to disturb. Boyd calls them over carefully to point out a few lying on the ground around the side of the building. Some have cracked skulls, like someone had taken a baseball bat to their heads while others have what looked like arrow holes through their eyes.

Kira glances around at them, grinning widely. “They’ve certainly been through here,” she says. She points at one body with an arrow head still embedded in its face. “That’s definitely Ally’s.”

Boyd laughs. “Yeah, it is. Thank god, at least we know for sure they got out now, huh?”

“Yep,” Malia said. “These are at least a week old though and that smell is so rank so can we please go inside?”

Derek laughs too and shakes his head at her. “Yeah, yeah,” he says, and turns to pick his way back to the front door. The lock has already been jimmied off so the door eases open with just a soft push.

The others fan out behind him as Derek steps through into the stale air of the gas station. All the scents are stale, no one has been here for at least a week, but he can still pick out faint hints of Scott and Stiles and Erica, Isaac and Peter and the rest of the pack. They were here.

They split up to explore the rows of shelves and the back rooms, looking for any supplies to add to their already bulking bags or anything the pack might have left for them. Mostly the shelves are empty, anything non-perishable cleared off and taken as supplies for some other group of survivors and all the rest is too old to be eaten by anything but the flies.

Derek gives up looking for anything salvageable and instead follows Boyd into the back room to see if there are any blankets or something to make sleeping more comfortable.

He finds a sleeping bag tucked under a desk in the office and a rolled up blanket that he supposes that they can share before slipping into the other back room. Boyd’s there too, but he isn’t looking for anything. He’s just staring at the wall, a strange choked look on his face.

“Boyd?” Derek says, concerned. “Are you alright?”

Boyd turns to face him and Derek is shocked at the moisture he can see gathered in the other man’s eyes. He doesn’t look _sad_ though. The look in his eyes is one filled with hope and promise.

“He left us a note,” Boyd says, voice quiet as if he thinks speaking too loud will disturb the miracle he seems to have found. Derek’s gaze follows to where he’s pointing and realises the wall is covered in scribbled writing.

There’s directions, outdated of course, to CEDA checkpoints and evac centres and messages addressed to people he doesn’t know and one which simply says ‘JEREMY FUCK YOU MAN.’ But there’s one patch of wall that is scrawled with handwriting that is so familiar his heart stutters in his chest.

Objectively, he’s known that they’re alright because they must have gotten out if the cars were gone, and the store front behind them is filled with the week-old scents of pack but it’s seeing Stiles’ almost illegible chicken scratch that finally hits it home. He’s safe, they’re safe and they’re waiting for them to come back to them.

Derek’s moved forward without even realising it until he finds himself right in front of Stiles’ message, reaching out to brush a hand over the words. The message tells them that they’re sticking to the plan and heading south to meet up with Cora and that if they find this message, they should continue down this road until they find other messages he plans to leave. There’s a shaky line, where Stiles’ hand hadn’t been able to keep steady. Derek chokes quietly when he reads it.

“Oh,” he says, voice cracking a little. “Liam.”

Boyd turns to him and they hold each other’s gaze for a moment. The kid hadn’t been a wolf long, had only just been coming to terms with each of his new skills and senses. He’d had so much hope and innocence, even after the virus started tearing down everything they knew.

Boyd clasps his shoulder in a brief gesture of comfort before he turns out of the room, probably to tell the others everything they’d found out in Stiles’ note. Derek thinks he should probably follow him, to help him explain and support them all through this new loss.

But he can’t bring himself to move. He sinks down to the floor and can’t tear his eyes away from that little piece of Stiles he has left, scrawled across the dingy wallpaper here in this shitty, rundown gas station store room.

Derek feels heat pricking behind his eyes, bubbling in his throat but he pushes it back down. It all sits heavy in his gut; guilt and worry and grief and loss swirling together in a way that makes him nauseous. It makes his breath catch sharply in his throat but he breathes through it, won’t allow himself even this moment of weakness.

Abruptly, he stands and spins, so Stiles’ words are at his back and he can’t see them anymore. He wipes his face roughly and clears his throat in a harsh cough. With one deep breath, he steps back into the other room to face his pack and all they still have left to do.

***

_30 th of May_

The party is already in full swing by the time Derek arrives. It’s at some senior’s house, just on the edge of the reserve, where the houses are big and far apart. At least they won’t be disturbing the neighbours too badly.

He parks his car as close as he can get and walks through the trees back to the party. Even from this far away he can feel the music reverberating in his head.

The heavy bass line shakes the windows and drums through his skull as he walks up the path to the open door. The house is filled to the brim, kids spilling out onto the lawn and red solo cups littering every visible surface. The smell of so many bodies piled in together mixed with greasy snack food and alcohol makes his nose burn and his stomach lurch. Just one more reason he hated parties as a kid.

Maybe he shouldn’t have come.

He’s just contemplating turning around and pretending he was never here when Malia comes barrelling out the door and straight into him.

“Derek!” she cries. “You came! Lydia wasn’t sure if you would but Erica kept saying you better not chicken out and I don’t know quite what she meant but I agree, you gotta come have fun with us! Just wait til the others see you, Stiles is gonna be so happy! He kept sulking about how you wouldn’t show and I _told him_ he was being dumb, ha!”

She grabs his hand and drags him through the throng of people milling in the doorway and into the noise and smell of the party.

“Doesn’t the smell get to you at _all_?” Derek asks. As the only other born-wolf, and having lived so long in the woods as a coyote Malia, like Derek, is much more in tune with her senses than the others.

Malia shrugs but doesn’t pause in her shoving through the crowd. “I kinda enjoy it?” she says. “Like, all these people shoved in together, just like, having fun. You know? After so long on my own, it’s just nice sometimes to be together with everyone, having fun together, dancing and stuff. It’s great. You can feel the music thrumming in your fingers.”

Derek shakes his head. She really has adjusted well, considering. He wonders if he can ever reach a point of being as okay with people as she has. He’s been getting better, but still, it’s hard. There are times when he’s not even sure he can handle the pack, let alone a house full of intoxicated strangers.

He wonders if Cora ever had these problems, or if she learned not to isolate herself earlier than he did. He’s been trying to reconnect with her, talking on Skype every other week but the closeness they felt before the fire is gone. Derek isn’t sure if they’ll ever be able to get back there. Everything still felt stilted.

His thoughts are interrupted by a hand on his shoulder and he fights not to startle at the sudden touch. He glances up and sees Malia has led him over to a corner of the living room, the pack spread out across various couches and on the floor.

Scott grins at him brightly and uses the hand on his shoulder to pull Derek into a tight hug.

“Dude!” he cries, pulling back and grinning at Derek’s face. “You came, yes! Now the whole pack is here!”

Derek laughs a little self depreciatingly. “Well, I heard a few compelling arguments for my presence,” he says with a shrug. “I might not stay to long though; it’s super loud in here.”

Scott throws his head back in a laugh. “So loud, dude, isn’t it awesome? Hey, you know who will be super pleased you made it?” Scott barely waits for Derek to shrug before he flings his head back and screams. “STILES!”

Various eyes around the room snap towards the noise, and Derek feels awkward under their gaze but the attention drifts again with a cry of ‘BEER PONG YES’ from the kitchen. There’s so much going on, Derek feels dizzy.

Stiles comes tumbling into the group from outside, smelling of a contradictory mix of fresh night air and beer. He smiles widely at Derek and slings an arm around his neck, on the opposite side to Scott.

“DEREK!” he cheers straight into his ear. “You’re finally here! Yes! Great! Let’s go have fun.”

The two drag Derek down onto the couch with them, refusing to let him go for the entire night. When he tries to protest, saying he never meant to stay long, they go on for a full half hour about the importance of 'bonding with the pack' and ‘hanging with us, your besties’. Derek sighs, but he’s hiding a smile behind his exasperation. Despite his posturing sometimes, he really does love all of them.

Members of the pack drift in and out of the conversation throughout the night but they all mostly stay together in this corner of the room, sprawled together along the couches and the floor. Derek stays on the couch, squished in between Scott and Stiles and just lets the warmth of _pack_ and _belonging_ and _home_ finally settle into his bones with a soft smile.

Stiles disappears at some point while Derek is engaged in a somewhat heated discussion with Jackson and Danny about the merits of basketball compared with lacrosse. He returns by rather dramatically collapsing back down, half in Derek’s lap with a solo cup in hand and interrupts them with a pointed remark about how his lacrosse skills were fundamentally more useful against the selkies last weekend.

This comment sets off a whole tirade between Stiles and Jackson about whether that had actually been a heroic display of skill or if it was instead a fortunate but coincidental consequence of ineptitude. Derek sits back and stays quiet, dodging slightly as Stiles’ arm wave about to punctuate his point. Derek’s chest fills with warmth at fondness for the kid and he can’t help but smile to himself; things might still be a bit shaky for him but this is what he needs, just warmth and pack and love.

He blinks. Well, there’s a realisation. He’s in love with Stiles.

And maybe he should be surprised by that revelation but he really isn’t. The lightness in his shoulders and the fondness in his chest when he’s around Stiles is so much more than a crush. Derek shakes his head at himself. He’s been _in love_ with Stiles for so long now, how didn’t he see it before?

Erica catches his eye across the group and smirks at him. Of course, he thinks. She definitely knew. Why else would she have been pushing him this much? She winks at him and gives him a thumbs-up, somehow knowing he’d just finally figured himself out. Derek shakes his head at her, thinking of how much he’d been resisting just this afternoon.

Suddenly, he wants nothing more than to talk to Stiles, alone, to sort out everything between them. Even if Erica, Isaac and Boyd are wrong and he doesn’t feel the same, at least he’ll know and he can move past it all and keep this lightness in his chest.

Derek sits up straighter, determined. He’s going to do it tonight. He turns slightly, ready to ask Stiles for a moment to talk but pauses. Stiles is still waving his arms around frantically, he’s pouting comically and his eyes shine in amusement. Derek doesn’t think he’s ever seen him so bright.

He sits back with a soft, small smile. In a minute, he thinks. For now he just wants to let the warmth and happiness wash over him.

***

_24 th of June_

The moon hangs heavy in the sky. It isn’t quite full but Derek can still feel its pull singing in his bone. The sun set hours ago but the silvery light the moon provides is more than enough to see by. It casts long shadows across the road ahead of them.

Derek sighs and shifts a bit, trying to get feeling back in his legs. He’s been sitting too long. He listens for a moment, focusing on the others’ slow breathing and steady heartbeats. He’s glad the teenagers had all finally managed to fall asleep.

It hadn’t taken them long to set up camp with their meagre supplies, and it’s too warm for them to need any blankets. They’d made a meal out of some canned beans heated up over a fire outside and then Derek had sent to others inside to try get some rest, electing himself for first watch. He’s sat outside for hours now, watching down the road and between the trees for any signs of coming zombies and listened to what remained of his pack talking together.

They’d all sounded so worried, about Liam, about the rest of the pack, about what they’d find in other messages later down the track. Malia hadn’t brought up how they’d never catch up again but she hadn’t needed to. That seemed to be hanging over all of them anyway.

The weight of worry and guilt sit heavy on Derek’s shoulders. If he’d just been a better leader that night maybe they wouldn’t have been trapped and maybe they wouldn’t have been left behind. He has so many people relying on him but he keeps failing them. Each and every time, when it really matters Derek falls short. He was a terrible alpha and his pack fell apart, he couldn’t face anything on his feet he just kept getting knocked down again and again.

Derek’s lungs squeeze and his breath comes short as each of his failures sit heavy on his chest. Why does he keep getting back up when he knows he’s just going to end up back on the ground? Why do people could putting their faith, their _lives_ , in his hands if all he’s good at is dropping it all and watching it shatter at his feet?

There’s nothing else to focus on, no distractions with which to push it all down. The only noises around him are the quiet creaks of the trees and the breathing from the kids inside. The kids who are looking up to him, who are relying on him to look out for them, to find them a way out of this hellscape and back to some measure of safety.

It’s too much. There’s so much he supposed to do, so much he has to _protect_ , and he just can’t do it.

There’s Scott, still only coming into his role as alpha but taking to it in a way Derek couldn’t even imagine in his own attempt. Scott has always been more compassionate, more understanding of each person’s needs. He’s a better leader. Derek wonders how much Liam’s loss is hitting him, whether he’s got anyone supporting him the way he needs, taking on some responsibility so that the teenager has time to grieve. Derek should be there for him, that’s his _job_. He hopes Isaac is taking his position as Scott's Second seriously, making sure Scott rests and looks after himself as well. He knows that his worry over Kira is going to be eating at him, just as Kira is worrying about Scott.

Derek closes his eyes and clenches his fists, digging his nails into his palms. There’s so much he’s done wrong here, so much he’s made harder for everyone else when the whole point of them keeping him around was to help them.

Guilt creeps up and tightens around his chest at the thought of the look Erica and Boyd had shared before they’d all set out, just a week ago. Stiles has said that maybe they should let them stick together, on the same team for the big escape plan, but Derek had been so sure that they’d all get out. He’d needed another pair of claws and it was Boyd he knew he could trust best. So he’d taken him with him. To get him trapped under the rubble of the school for a week and separate Erica from the only good thing she had left. He just hopes Erica can forgive him for the risks he’s run with Boyd’s life now.

There’s been so much death in the last few weeks, people they knew and people they didn’t. Derek is praying to any god he can think of that the rest of their pack can get through this unscathed. He can only imagine how Lydia must feel.

She’d confided in Derek before they’d all headed out. Derek remembers now how tense her jaw had been set, the way her hands had shaken even as she’d clenched them tightly. She hadn’t wanted anyone else to know how much the whole crisis was really affecting her, hadn’t wanted to worry her friends when they all had so much more to think about. They still hadn’t quite figured out her newly awakening powers, the abilities her banshee heritage gave her, but she’d said that she could hear them all, _feel_ them all, in her head. She’d told him she could try to shut them out but that sometimes the only way to drown out the voices in her head was to scream and she couldn’t. A scream would just attract more of them and then they too would call to her.

Derek had promised her he’d help and now here he was, her only confidant and miles away without a single way to reach her. He just kept breaking his promises and failing his pack, his _friends_.

Just like he would eventually fail Stiles. Maybe he already had, by failing the pack, by leaving him to carry on without him. He’d known it wouldn’t last, had known from even before he’d truly accepted that he loved Stiles, that the only thing he would bring the teenager would be pain and heartbreak. But it had felt so good to be told he was loved and important and needed that he’d pushed it all away. He’d let Stiles close and said yes to whatever he asked for.

Derek shakes his head and pushes himself to his feet, stands tall and tries to feel the strength the others see in him. He takes a deep breath and for the first time in a long time he feels like his lungs are clean. The air is clearer out here, further away from any town. It smells only of trees and dirt and night time.

He’s going to make it right; this has to be the one thing he doesn’t destroy. He will get the others back to their pack, he will find Stiles again.

He has to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all again for reading this, if you’ve just joined the story – Welcome, hope you liked it enough to stay with us ‘til the end. If you’ve been waiting for this to update for like six months??! (holy moley I am sorry), thank you so, so much for being patient, I’m so glad you liked it enough to come back. Thank you for your lovely comments and your kudos. You are all the best.
> 
> Special Mention thanks to PaleAngel_90 who asked if I could add in some chapters from Derek’s perspective. While this meant this chapter took _slightly_ longer than I had hoped to write (and was a lot more painful, I can’t write Derek like wow), I do think it really adds something great to the story and I’ve now got a lot more planned too. So thank you to them for making my writing better.
> 
> Also a round of applause for [DoNotPullTheBeigeLever](http://archiveofourown.org/users/DoNotPullTheBeigeLever/) for beta-ing this thing. I'm sorry for sending you >1k word snippets and then sending another message saying I scrapped the whole bit so don't bother reading. And thanks for putting up with the large amounts of whinning that came with the writing of this chapter. You are the greatest, I swear.
> 
> Please comment if you want to see anything in future chapters or have anything you think I can do better with my writing. Or drop me a message on [my tumblr](http://im-a-weredonkey.tumblr.com/) if you want to chat about this story or anything really :)


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